Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

We consider the influence of an incompressible drift on the expected exit time of a diffusing particle from a bounded domain. Mixing resulting from an incompressible drift typically enhances diffusion so one might think it always decreases the expected exit time. Nevertheless, we show that in two dimensions, the only simply connected domains for which the expected exit time is maximized by zero drift are the discs.

A separated sequence of real numbers is called a Polya sequence if the only entire functions of zero type which are bounded on this sequence are the constants. The Polya-Levinson problem asks for a description of all Polya sequences. In this talk, I will present some points of the recently obtained solution. The approach is based on the use of Toeplitz operators and de Branges spaces of entire functions. I will also present some partial results about the related Beurling gap problem.

The asymptotic theory is developed for polynomial sequences that are generated by the three-term higher-order recurrence Q_{n+1} = zQ_n - a_{n-p+1}Q_{n-p}, p \in \mathbb{N}, n\geq p, where z is a complex variable and the coefficients a_k are positive and satisfy the perturbation condition \sum_{n=1}^\infty |a_n-a|<\infty . Our results generalize known results for p = 1, that is, for orthogonal polynomial sequences on the real line that belong to the Blumenthal-Nevai class. As is known, for p\geq 2, the role of the interval is replaced by a starlike set S of p+1 rays emanating from the origin on which the Q_n satisfy a multiple orthogonality condition involving p measures. Here we obtain strong asymptotics for the Q_n in the complex plane outside the common support of these measures as well as on the (finite) open rays of their support. In so doing, we obtain an extension of Weyl's famous theorem dealing with compact perturbations of bounded self-adjoint operators. Furthermore, we derive generalizations of the classical Szeg\"o functions, and we show that there is an underlying Nikishin system hierarchy for the orthogonality measures that is related to the Weyl functions. Our results also have application to Hermite-Pad\'e approximants as well as to vector continued fractions.

Let A and B be attractors of two point-fibred iterated function systems with coding maps f and g. A transformations from A into B can be constructed by composing a branch of the inverse of f with g. I will outline the shape of the theory of such transformations, which are termed "fractal" because their graphs are typically of non-integer dimension. I will also describe the remarkable geometry of these transformations when the generating iterated functions systems are projective. Finally, I will show how they can be used to provide new insights into dynamical systems and also how they can be used to manipulate, filter, process and efficiently store digital images, and how they can be used in image synthesis, leading to applications in the visual arts.