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Selection in the monadic theory of a countable ordinal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

Alexander Rabinovich  and
Amit Shomrat
Alexander Rabinovich
Affiliation:
Tel-Aviv University, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel, E-mail: [email protected]
Amit Shomrat
Affiliation:
Tel-Aviv University, Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

A monadic formula ψ(Y) is a selector for a formula φ(Y) in a structure if there exists a unique subset P of which satisfies ψ and this P also satisfies φ. We show that for every ordinal α ≥ ωω there are formulas having no selector in the structure (α, <). For α ≤ ω1, we decide which formulas have a selector in (α, <) , and construct selectors for them. We deduce the impossibility of a full generalization of the Büchi-Landweber solvability theorem from (ω, <) to (ωω, <). We state a partial extension of that theorem to all countable ordinals. To each formula we assign a selection degree which measures “how difficult it is to select”. We show that in a countable ordinal all non-selectable formulas share the same degree.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Symbolic Logic , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , September 2008 , pp. 783 - 816
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 2008

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