We present the true stages machinery and illustrate its applications to descriptive set theory. We use this machinery to provide new proofs of the Hausdorff–Kuratowski and Wadge theorems on the structure of $\mathbf {\Delta }^0_\xi $, Louveau and Saint Raymond’s separation theorem, and Louveau’s separation theorem.

We define the Scott complexity of a countable structure to be the least complexity of a Scott sentence for that structure. This is a finer notion of complexity than Scott rank: it distinguishes between whether the simplest Scott sentence is $\Sigma _{\alpha }$ , $\Pi _{\alpha }$ , or $\mathrm {d-}\Sigma _{\alpha }$ . We give a complete classification of the possible Scott complexities, including an example of a structure whose simplest Scott sentence is $\Sigma _{\lambda + 1}$ for $\lambda $ a limit ordinal. This answers a question left open by A. Miller.

We also construct examples of computable structures of high Scott rank with Scott complexities $\Sigma _{\omega _1^{CK}+1}$ and $\mathrm {d-}\Sigma _{\omega _1^{CK}+1}$ . There are three other possible Scott complexities for a computable structure of high Scott rank: $\Pi _{\omega _1^{CK}}$ , $\Pi _{\omega _1^{CK}+1}$ , $\Sigma _{\omega _1^{CK}+1}$ . Examples of these were already known. Our examples are computable structures of Scott rank $\omega _1^{CK}+1$ which, after naming finitely many constants, have Scott rank $\omega _1^{CK}$ . The existence of such structures was an open question.

We show that there is a cuppable c.e. degree, all of whose cupping partners are high. In particular, not all cuppable degrees are ${\operatorname {\mathrm {low}}}_3$-cuppable, or indeed ${\operatorname {\mathrm {low}}}_n$ cuppable for any n, refuting a conjecture by Li. On the other hand, we show that one cannot improve highness to superhighness. We also show that the ${\operatorname {\mathrm {low}}}_2$-cuppable degrees coincide with the array computable-cuppable degrees, giving a full understanding of the latter class.

We describe punctual categoricity in several natural classes, including binary relational structures and mono-unary functional structures. We prove that every punctually categorical structure in a finite unary language is ${\text {PA}}(0')$-categorical, and we show that this upper bound is tight. We also construct an example of a punctually categorical structure whose degree of categoricity is $0''$. We also prove that, with a bit of work, the latter result can be pushed beyond $\Delta ^1_1$, thus showing that punctually categorical structures can possess arbitrarily complex automorphism orbits.

As a consequence, it follows that binary relational structures and unary structures are not universal with respect to primitive recursive interpretations; equivalently, in these classes every rich enough interpretation technique must necessarily involve unbounded existential quantification or infinite disjunction. In contrast, it is well-known that both classes are universal for Turing computability.

A problem is a multivalued function from a set of instances to a set of solutions. We consider only instances and solutions coded by sets of integers. A problem admits preservation of some computability-theoretic weakness property if every computable instance of the problem admits a solution relative to which the property holds. For example, cone avoidance is the ability, given a noncomputable set A and a computable instance of a problem ${\mathsf {P}}$ , to find a solution relative to which A is still noncomputable.

In this article, we compare relativized versions of computability-theoretic notions of preservation which have been studied in reverse mathematics, and prove that the ones which were not already separated by natural statements in the literature actually coincide. In particular, we prove that it is equivalent to admit avoidance of one cone, of $\omega $ cones, of one hyperimmunity or of one non- $\Sigma ^{0}_1$ definition. We also prove that the hierarchies of preservation of hyperimmunity and non- $\Sigma ^{0}_1$ definitions coincide. On the other hand, none of these notions coincide in a nonrelativized setting.

We review the current knowledge concerning strong jump-traceability. We cover the known results relating strong jump-traceability to randomness, and those relating it to degree theory. We also discuss the techniques used in working with strongly jump-traceable sets. We end with a section of open questions.

This article contributes to the general program of extending techniques and ideas of effective algebra to computable metric space theory. It is well-known that relative computable categoricity (to be defined) of a computable algebraic structure is equivalent to having a c.e. Scott family with finitely many parameters (e.g., [1]). The first main result of the article extends this characterisation to computable Polish metric spaces. The second main result illustrates that just a slight change of the definitions will give us a new notion of categoricity unseen in the countable case (to be stated formally). The second result also shows that the characterisation of computably categorical closed subspaces of ${\Cal R}^n $ contained in [17] cannot be improved. The third main result extends the characterisation to not necessarily separable structures of cardinality κ using κ-computability.

We introduce a new hierarchy of computably enumerable degrees. This hierarchy is based on computable ordinal notations measuring complexity of approximation of ${\rm{\Delta }}_2^0$ functions. The hierarchy unifies and classifies the combinatorics of a number of diverse constructions in computability theory. It does so along the lines of the high degrees (Martin) and the array noncomputable degrees (Downey, Jockusch, and Stob). The hierarchy also gives a number of natural definability results in the c.e. degrees, including a definable antichain.

We use concepts of continuous higher randomness, developed in Bienvenu et al. [‘Continuous higher randomness’, J. Math. Log. 17(1) (2017).], to investigate $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{1}^{1}$-randomness. We discuss lowness for $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{1}^{1}$-randomness, cupping with $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}_{1}^{1}$-random sequences, and an analogue of the Hirschfeldt–Miller characterization of weak 2-randomness. We also consider analogous questions for Cohen forcing, concentrating on the class of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F4}_{1}^{1}$-generic reals.

We construct an increasing ${\it\omega}$ -sequence $\langle \boldsymbol{a}_{n}\rangle$ of Turing degrees which forms an initial segment of the Turing degrees, and such that each $\boldsymbol{a}_{n+1}$ is diagonally nonrecursive relative to $\boldsymbol{a}_{n}$ . It follows that the DNR principle of reverse mathematics does not imply the existence of Turing incomparable degrees.

We show that a Δ02 Turing degree computes solutions to all computable instances of the finite intersection principle if and only if it computes a 1-generic degree. We also investigate finite and infinite variants of the principle.

We study the computable structure theory of linear orders of size $\aleph _1 $ within the framework of admissible computability theory. In particular, we characterize which of these linear orders are computably categorical.

We study the computable structure theory of linear orders of size $\aleph _1 $ within the framework of admissible computability theory. In particular, we study degree spectra and the successor relation.

We show the existence of noncomputable oracles which are low for Demuth randomness, answering a question in [15] (also Problem 5.5.19 in [34]). We fully characterize lowness for Demuth randomness using an appropriate notion of traceability. Central to this characterization is a partial relativization of Demuth randomness, which may be more natural than the fully relativized version. We also show that an oracle is low for weak Demuth randomness if and only if it is computable.

Every K-trivial set is computable from an incomplete Martin-Löf random set, i.e., a Martin-Löf random set that does not compute the halting problem.

In contrast with the notion of complexity, a set A is called anti-complex if the Kolmogorov complexity of the initial segments of A chosen by a recursive function is always bounded by the identity function. We show that, as for complexity, the natural arena for examining anti-complexity is the weak-truth table degrees. In this context, we show the equivalence of anti-complexity and other lowness notions such as r.e. traceability or being weak truth-table reducible to a Schnorr trivial set. A set A is anti-complex if and only if it is reducible to another set B with tiny use, whereby we mean that the use function for reducing A to B can be made to grow arbitrarily slowly, as gauged by unbounded nondecreasing recursive functions. This notion of reducibility is then studied in its own right, and we also investigate its range and the range of its uniform counterpart.