Jacques TitsJacques Tits (tits) (12 August 1930 – 5 December 2021) was a Belgian-born French mathematician who worked on group theory and incidence geometry. He introduced Tits buildings, the Tits alternative, the Tits group, and the Tits metric. Tits was born in Uccle to Léon Tits, a professor, and Lousia André. Jacques attended the Athénée of Uccle and the Free University of Brussels. His thesis advisor was Paul Libois, and Tits graduated with his doctorate in 1950 with the dissertation Généralisation des groupes projectifs basés sur la notion de transitivité.
Field of fractionsIn abstract algebra, the field of fractions of an integral domain is the smallest field in which it can be embedded. The construction of the field of fractions is modeled on the relationship between the integral domain of integers and the field of rational numbers. Intuitively, it consists of ratios between integral domain elements. The field of fractions of an integral domain is sometimes denoted by or , and the construction is sometimes also called the fraction field, field of quotients, or quotient field of .
Associative algebraIn mathematics, an associative algebra A is an algebraic structure with compatible operations of addition, multiplication (assumed to be associative), and a scalar multiplication by elements in some field K. The addition and multiplication operations together give A the structure of a ring; the addition and scalar multiplication operations together give A the structure of a vector space over K. In this article we will also use the term [[algebra over a field|K-algebra]] to mean an associative algebra over the field K.
Building (mathematics)In mathematics, a building (also Tits building, named after Jacques Tits) is a combinatorial and geometric structure which simultaneously generalizes certain aspects of flag manifolds, finite projective planes, and Riemannian symmetric spaces. Buildings were initially introduced by Jacques Tits as a means to understand the structure of exceptional groups of Lie type. The more specialized theory of Bruhat–Tits buildings (named also after François Bruhat) plays a role in the study of p-adic Lie groups analogous to that of the theory of symmetric spaces in the theory of Lie groups.
Scheme (mathematics)In mathematics, a scheme is a mathematical structure that enlarges the notion of algebraic variety in several ways, such as taking account of multiplicities (the equations x = 0 and x2 = 0 define the same algebraic variety but different schemes) and allowing "varieties" defined over any commutative ring (for example, Fermat curves are defined over the integers). Scheme theory was introduced by Alexander Grothendieck in 1960 in his treatise "Éléments de géométrie algébrique"; one of its aims was developing the formalism needed to solve deep problems of algebraic geometry, such as the Weil conjectures (the last of which was proved by Pierre Deligne).
Affine Lie algebraIn mathematics, an affine Lie algebra is an infinite-dimensional Lie algebra that is constructed in a canonical fashion out of a finite-dimensional simple Lie algebra. Given an affine Lie algebra, one can also form the associated affine Kac-Moody algebra, as described below. From a purely mathematical point of view, affine Lie algebras are interesting because their representation theory, like representation theory of finite-dimensional semisimple Lie algebras, is much better understood than that of general Kac–Moody algebras.
Constructible sheafIn mathematics, a constructible sheaf is a sheaf of abelian groups over some topological space X, such that X is the union of a finite number of locally closed subsets on each of which the sheaf is a locally constant sheaf. It has its origins in algebraic geometry, where in étale cohomology constructible sheaves are defined in a similar way . For the derived category of constructible sheaves, see a section in l-adic sheaf. The finiteness theorem in étale cohomology states that the higher direct images of a constructible sheaf are constructible.
UnipotentIn mathematics, a unipotent element r of a ring R is one such that r − 1 is a nilpotent element; in other words, (r − 1)n is zero for some n. In particular, a square matrix M is a unipotent matrix if and only if its characteristic polynomial P(t) is a power of t − 1. Thus all the eigenvalues of a unipotent matrix are 1. The term quasi-unipotent means that some power is unipotent, for example for a diagonalizable matrix with eigenvalues that are all roots of unity.
Hilbert's NullstellensatzIn mathematics, Hilbert's Nullstellensatz (German for "theorem of zeros", or more literally, "zero-locus-theorem") is a theorem that establishes a fundamental relationship between geometry and algebra. This relationship is the basis of algebraic geometry. It relates algebraic sets to ideals in polynomial rings over algebraically closed fields. This relationship was discovered by David Hilbert, who proved the Nullstellensatz in his second major paper on invariant theory in 1893 (following his seminal 1890 paper in which he proved Hilbert's basis theorem).
Generalized flag varietyIn mathematics, a generalized flag variety (or simply flag variety) is a homogeneous space whose points are flags in a finite-dimensional vector space V over a field F. When F is the real or complex numbers, a generalized flag variety is a smooth or complex manifold, called a real or complex flag manifold. Flag varieties are naturally projective varieties. Flag varieties can be defined in various degrees of generality. A prototype is the variety of complete flags in a vector space V over a field F, which is a flag variety for the special linear group over F.
