We show that isomorphism is not a complete ${\rm{\Sigma }}_1^1$ equivalence relation even when restricted to the hyperarithmetic reals: If E1 denotes the ${\rm{\Sigma }}_1^1$ (even ${\rm{\Delta }}_1^1$) equivalence relation of [4] then for no Hyp function f do we have xEy iff f(x) is isomorphic to f(y) for all Hyp reals x,y. As a corollary to the proof we provide for each computable limit ordinal α a hyperarithmetic reduction of ${ \equiv _\alpha }$ (elementary-equivalence for sentences of quantifier-rank less than α) on arbitrary countable structures to isomorphism on countable structures of Scott rank at most α.

From large cardinals we show the consistency of normal, fine, κ-complete λ-dense ideals on ${{\cal P}_\kappa }\left( \lambda \right)$ for successor κ. We explore the interplay between dense ideals, cardinal arithmetic, and squares, answering some open questions of Foreman.

Assuming AD, we show that all of the ordinals below $\delta _5^1$ represented by descriptions (c.f. [2], but also defined below) are cardinals. Using this analysis we also get a simple representation for the cardinal structure below $\delta _5^1$. As an application, we compute the cofinalitites of all cardinals below $\delta _5^1$.

We extend the characterization of extremal valued fields given in [2] to the missing case of valued fields of mixed characteristic with perfect residue field. This leads to a complete characterization of the tame valued fields that are extremal. The key to the proof is a model theoretic result about tame valued fields in mixed characteristic. Further, we prove that in an extremal valued field of finite p-degree, the images of all additive polynomials have the optimal approximation property. This fact can be used to improve the axiom system that is suggested in [8] for the elementary theory of Laurent series fields over finite fields. Finally we give examples that demonstrate the problems we are facing when we try to characterize the extremal valued fields with imperfect residue fields. To this end, we describe several ways of constructing extremal valued fields; in particular, we show that in every ℵ1 saturated valued field the valuation is a composition of extremal valuations of rank 1.

In this paper, we investigate connections between structures present in every generic extension of the universe V and computability theory. We introduce the notion of generic Muchnik reducibility that can be used to compare the complexity of uncountable structures; we establish basic properties of this reducibility, and study it in the context of generic presentability, the existence of a copy of the structure in every extension by a given forcing. We show that every forcing notion making ω2 countable generically presents some countable structure with no copy in the ground model; and that every structure generically presentable by a forcing notion that does not make ω2 countable has a copy in the ground model. We also show that any countable structure ${\cal A}$ that is generically presentable by a forcing notion not collapsing ω1 has a countable copy in V, as does any structure ${\cal B}$ generically Muchnik reducible to a structure ${\cal A}$ of cardinality ℵ1. The former positive result yields a new proof of Harrington’s result that counterexamples to Vaught’s conjecture have models of power ℵ1 with Scott rank arbitrarily high below ω2. Finally, we show that a rigid structure with copies in all generic extensions by a given forcing has a copy already in the ground model.

We introduce the notion of finitary computable reducibility on equivalence relations on the domain ω. This is a weakening of the usual notion of computable reducibility, and we show it to be distinct in several ways. In particular, whereas no equivalence relation can be ${\rm{\Pi }}_{n + 2}^0$ -complete under computable reducibility, we show that, for every n, there does exist a natural equivalence relation which is ${\rm{\Pi }}_{n + 2}^0$ -complete under finitary reducibility. We also show that our hierarchy of finitary reducibilities does not collapse, and illustrate how it sharpens certain known results. Along the way, we present several new results which use computable reducibility to establish the complexity of various naturally defined equivalence relations in the arithmetical hierarchy.

We present a framework for studying the concept of independence in a general context covering database theory, algebra and model theory as special cases. We show that well-known axioms and rules of independence for making inferences concerning basic atomic independence statements are complete with respect to a variety of semantics. Our results show that the uses of independence concepts in as different areas as database theory, algebra, and model theory, can be completely characterized by the same axioms. We also consider concepts related to independence, such as dependence.

This paper presents a unified framework that explains and extends the already successful applications of the Leibniz operator, the Suszko operator, and the Tarski operator in recent developments in abstract algebraic logic. To this end, we refine Czelakowski’s notion of an S-compatibility operator, and introduce the notion of coherent family of S-compatibility operators, for a sentential logic S. The notion of coherence is a restricted property of commutativity with inverse images by surjective homomorphisms, which is satisfied by both the Leibniz and the Suszko operators. We generalize several constructions and results already existing for the mentioned operators; in particular, the well-known classes of algebras associated with a logic through each of them, and the notions of full generalized model of a logic and a special kind of S-filters (which generalizes the less-known notion of Leibniz filter). We obtain a General Correspondence Theorem, extending the well-known one from the theory of protoalgebraic logics to arbitrary logics and to more general operators, and strengthening its formulation. We apply the general results to the Leibniz and the Suszko operators, and obtain several characterizations of the main classes of logics in the Leibniz hierarchy by the form of their full generalized models, by old and new properties of the Leibniz operator, and by the behaviour of the Suszko operator. Some of these characterizations complete or extend known ones, for some classes in the hierarchy, thus offering an integrated approach to the Leibniz hierarchy that uncovers some new, nice symmetries.

The (prefix-free) Kolmogorov complexity of a finite binary string is the length of the shortest description of the string. This gives rise to some ‘standard’ lowness notions for reals: A is K-trivial if its initial segments have the lowest possible complexity and A is low for K if using A as an oracle does not decrease the complexity of strings by more than a constant factor. We weaken these notions by requiring the defining inequalities to hold only up to all ${\rm{\Delta }}_2^0$ orders, and call the new notions ${\rm{\Delta }}_2^0$-bounded K-trivial and ${\rm{\Delta }}_2^0$-bounded low for K. Several of the ‘nice’ properties of K-triviality are lost with this weakening. For instance, the new weaker definitions both give uncountable set of reals. In this paper we show that the weaker definitions are no longer equivalent, and that the ${\rm{\Delta }}_2^0$-bounded K-trivials are cofinal in the Turing degrees. We then compare them to other previously studied weakenings, namely infinitely-often K-triviality and weak lowness for K (in each, the defining inequality must hold up to a constant, but only for infinitely many inputs). We show that ${\rm{\Delta }}_2^0$-bounded K-trivial implies infinitely-often K-trivial, but no implication holds between ${\rm{\Delta }}_2^0$-bounded low for K and weakly low for K.

Quasiminimal pregeometry classes were introduced by [6] to isolate the model theoretical core of several interesting examples. He proves that a quasiminimal pregeometry class satisfying an additional axiom, called excellence, is categorical in all uncountable cardinalities. Recently, [2] showed that the excellence axiom follows from the rest of the axioms. In this paper we present a direct proof of the categoricity result without using excellence.

Let ($\rm L$;C) be the (up to isomorphism unique) countable homogeneous structure carrying a binary branching C-relation. We study the reducts of ($\rm L$;C), i.e., the structures with domain $\rm L$ that are first-order definable in ($\rm L$;C). We show that up to existential interdefinability, there are finitely many such reducts. This implies that there are finitely many reducts up to first-order interdefinability, thus confirming a conjecture of Simon Thomas for the special case of ($\rm L$;C). We also study the endomorphism monoids of such reducts and show that they fall into four categories.

If X and Y are orthogonal hyperdefinable sets such that X is simple, then any group G interpretable in X ∪ Y has a normal hyperdefinable X-internal subgroup N such that G/N is Y-internal; N is unique up to commensurability. In order to make sense of this statement, local simplicity theory for hyperdefinable sets is developed. Moreover, a version of Schlichting’s Theorem for hyperdefinable families of commensurable subgroups is shown.

We show that any simple group of Morley rank 4 must be a bad group with no proper definable subgroups of rank larger than 1. We also give an application to groups acting on sets of Morley rank 2.

Let E be a computably enumerable (c.e.) equivalence relation on the set ω of natural numbers. We say that the quotient set $\omega /E$ (or equivalently, the relation E) realizes a linearly ordered set ${\cal L}$ if there exists a c.e. relation ⊴ respecting E such that the induced structure ($\omega /E$; ⊴) is isomorphic to ${\cal L}$. Thus, one can consider the class of all linearly ordered sets that are realized by $\omega /E$; formally, ${\cal K}\left( E \right) = \left\{ {{\cal L}\,|\,{\rm{the}}\,{\rm{order}}\, - \,{\rm{type}}\,{\cal L}\,{\rm{is}}\,{\rm{realized}}\,{\rm{by}}\,E} \right\}$. In this paper we study the relationship between computability-theoretic properties of E and algebraic properties of linearly ordered sets realized by E. One can also define the following pre-order $ \le _{lo} $ on the class of all c.e. equivalence relations: $E_1 \le _{lo} E_2 $ if every linear order realized by E1 is also realized by E2. Following the tradition of computability theory, the lo-degrees are the classes of equivalence relations induced by the pre-order $ \le _{lo} $. We study the partially ordered set of lo-degrees. For instance, we construct various chains and anti-chains and show the existence of a maximal element among the lo-degrees.

We extend the classical Feferman–Vaught theorem to logic for metric structures. This implies that the reduced powers of elementarily equivalent structures are elementarily equivalent, and therefore they are isomorphic under the Continuum Hypothesis. We also prove the existence of two separable C*-algebras of the form ⊕iMk(i) (ℂ) such that the assertion that their coronas are isomorphic is independent from ZFC, which gives the first example of genuinely noncommutative coronas of separable C*-algebras with this property.

We show how to force, with finite conditions, the forcing axiom PFA(T), a relativization of PFA to proper forcing notions preserving a given Suslin tree T. The proof uses a Neeman style iteration with generalized side conditions consisting of models of two types, and a preservation theorem for such iterations. The consistency of this axiom was previously known using a standard countable support iteration and a preservation theorem due to Miyamoto.

Analyzing the effective content of the Lebesgue density theorem played a crucial role in some recent developments in algorithmic randomness, namely, the solutions of the ML-covering and ML-cupping problems. Two new classes of reals emerged from this inquiry: the positive density points with respect to effectively closed (or $\prod _1^0$) sets of reals, and a proper subclass, the density-one points. Bienvenu, Hölzl, Miller, and Nies have shown that the Martin-Löf random positive density points are exactly the ones that do not compute the halting problem. Treating this theorem as our starting point, we present several new results that shed light on how density, randomness, and computational strength interact.

We separate many of the basic fragments of classical logic which are used in reverse constructive mathematics. A group of related Kripke and topological models is used to show that various fragments of the Weak Law of the Excluded Middle, the Limited Principle of Omniscience, and Markov’s Principle, including Weak Markov’s Principle, do not imply each other.

We define a simple criterion for a homogeneous, complete metric structure X that implies that the automorphism group Aut(X) satisfies all the main consequences of the existence of ample generics: it has the automatic continuity property, the small index property, and uncountable cofinality for nonopen subgroups. Then we verify it for the Urysohn space $$, the Lebesgue probability measure algebra MALG, and the Hilbert space $\ell _2 $, thus proving that Iso($$), Aut(MALG), $U\left( {\ell _2 } \right)$, and $O\left( {\ell _2 } \right)$ share these properties. We also formulate a condition for X which implies that every homomorphism of Aut(X) into a separable group K with a left-invariant, complete metric, is trivial, and we verify it for $$, and $\ell _2 $.