Anick spaces are closely connected with both EHP sequences and the study of torsion exponents. In addition they refine the secondary suspension and enter unstable periodicity. This work describes their -space properties as well as universal properties. Techniques include a new kind on Whitehead product defined for maps out of co-H spaces, calculations in an additive category that lies between the unstable category and the stable category, and a controlled version of the extension theorem of Gray and Theriault (Geom. Topol. 14 (2010), no. 1, 243–275).

In this work the author lets be an irreducible root system, with Coxeter group . He considers subsets of which are abelian, meaning that no two roots in the set have sum in . He classifies all maximal abelian sets (i.e., abelian sets properly contained in no other) up to the action of : for each -orbit of maximal abelian sets we provide an explicit representative , identify the (setwise) stabilizer of in , and decompose into -orbits. Abelian sets of roots are closely related to abelian unipotent subgroups of simple algebraic groups, and thus to abelian -subgroups of finite groups of Lie type over fields of characteristic . Parts of the work presented here have been used to confirm the -rank of , and (somewhat unexpectedly) to obtain for the first time the -ranks of the Monster and Baby Monster sporadic groups, together with the double cover of the latter. Root systems of classical type are dealt with quickly here; the vast majority of the present work concerns those of exceptional type. In these root systems the author introduces the notion of a radical set; such a set corresponds to a subgroup of a simple algebraic group lying in the unipotent radical of a certain maximal parabolic subgroup. The classification of radical maximal abelian sets for the larger root systems of exceptional type presents an interesting challenge; it is accomplished by converting the problem to that of classifying certain graphs modulo a particular equivalence relation.

The author discusses in which sense general metric measure spaces possess a first order differential structure. Building on this, spaces with Ricci curvature bounded from below a second order calculus can be developed, permitting the author to define Hessian, covariant/exterior derivatives and Ricci curvature.

The authors introduce and study the class of groups graded by root systems. They prove that if is an irreducible classical root system of rank and is a group graded by , then under certain natural conditions on the grading, the union of the root subgroups is a Kazhdan subset of . As the main application of this theorem the authors prove that for any reduced irreducible classical root system of rank and a finitely generated commutative ring with , the Steinberg group and the elementary Chevalley group have property . They also show that there exists a group with property which maps onto all finite simple groups of Lie type and rank , thereby providing a “unified” proof of expansion in these groups.

The authors give the complete stably rational classification of algebraic tori of dimensions and over a field . In particular, the stably rational classification of norm one tori whose Chevalley modules are of rank and is given. The authors show that there exist exactly (resp. , resp. ) stably rational (resp. not stably but retract rational, resp. not retract rational) algebraic tori of dimension , and there exist exactly (resp. , resp. ) stably rational (resp. not stably but retract rational, resp. not retract rational) algebraic tori of dimension . The authors make a procedure to compute a flabby resolution of a -lattice effectively by using the computer algebra system GAP. Some algorithms may determine whether the flabby class of a -lattice is invertible (resp. zero) or not. Using the algorithms, the suthors determine all the flabby and coflabby -lattices of rank up to and verify that they are stably permutation. The authors also show that the Krull-Schmidt theorem for -lattices holds when the rank , and fails when the rank is ...

The Cuntz semigroup of a -algebra is an important invariant in the structure and classification theory of -algebras. It captures more information than -theory but is often more delicate to handle. The authors systematically study the lattice and category theoretic aspects of Cuntz semigroups. Given a -algebra , its (concrete) Cuntz semigroup is an object in the category of (abstract) Cuntz semigroups, as introduced by Coward, Elliott and Ivanescu. To clarify the distinction between concrete and abstract Cuntz semigroups, the authors call the latter -semigroups. The authors establish the existence of tensor products in the category and study the basic properties of this construction. They show that is a symmetric, monoidal category and relate with for certain classes of -algebras. As a main tool for their approach the authors introduce the category of pre-completed Cuntz semigroups. They show that is a full, reflective subcategory of . One can then easily deduce properties of from respective properties of , for example the existence of tensor products and inductive limits. The advantage is that constructions in are much easier since the objects are purely algebraic.

In this paper the authors start with the construction of the symplectic field theory (SFT). As a general theory of symplectic invariants, SFT has been outlined in Introduction to symplectic field theory (2000), by Y. Eliashberg, A. Givental and H. Hofer who have predicted its formal properties. The actual construction of SFT is a hard analytical problem which will be overcome be means of the polyfold theory due to the present authors. The current paper addresses a significant amount of the arising issues and the general theory will be completed in part II of this paper. To illustrate the polyfold theory the authors use the results of the present paper to describe an alternative construction of the Gromov-Witten invariants for general compact symplectic manifolds.