We study model theory of actions of finite groups on substructures of a stable structure. We give an abstract description of existentially closed actions as above in terms of invariants and PAC structures. We show that if the corresponding PAC property is first order, then the theory of such actions has a model companion. Then, we analyze some particular theories of interest (mostly various theories of fields of positive characteristic) and show that in all the cases considered the PAC property is first order.

Here, we present a category ${\mathbf {pEff}}$ which can be considered a predicative variant of Hyland's Effective Topos ${{\mathbf {Eff} }}$ for the following reasons. First, its construction is carried in Feferman’s predicative theory of non-iterative fixpoints ${{\widehat {ID_1}}}$ . Second, ${\mathbf {pEff}}$ is a list-arithmetic locally cartesian closed pretopos with a full subcategory ${{\mathbf {pEff}_{set}}}$ of small objects having the same categorical structure which is preserved by the embedding in ${\mathbf {pEff}}$ ; furthermore subobjects in ${{\mathbf {pEff}_{set}}}$ are classified by a non-small object in ${\mathbf {pEff}}$ . Third ${\mathbf {pEff}}$ happens to coincide with the exact completion of the lex category defined as a predicative rendering in ${{\widehat {ID_1}}}$ of the subcategory of ${{\mathbf {Eff} }}$ of recursive functions and it validates the Formal Church’s thesis. Hence pEff turns out to be itself a predicative rendering of a full subcategory of ${{\mathbf {Eff} }}$ .

In [1], the principle of semisubstitutivity of implication (SSI) was introduced for ordinary PC and quantification theory. This metatheorem generalizes the notions of “antecedent” and “consequent” to cover all wf subformulas of a given formula; each such subformula will be classified as being either in “antecedental position” (A-pos) or “consequential position” (C-pos). It is simplest to check these positions in a conjunction-negation primitive system: reduce a formula φ to primitive notation (K—N) ; choose a subformula ψ of φ; count the negation signs in φ within whose scope ψ falls.

The lambda calculus was conceived by Church, and to some extent by Curry (see [1] and [2]), as a general theory of functions, more precisely as a formalization of two basic functional concepts: application and abstraction. This claim to universality was impossible to maintain, for it soon became apparent that functions in the calculus are required to have properties which are by no means universal. Self-application is certainly a very special feature, but more relevant from our point of view is the existence of fixed points, which is definitely a nonuniversal property of functions. This situation was not ignored, but was considered rather as a form of inconsistency very much related to the paradoxes of set theory (for example, see the discussion of the paradoxical combinator in [2]).

More recently, the lambda calculus has been studied by people in computer science, and as a result the algorithmic nature of the system has been more explicitly recognized. Eventually, the right approach was taken by D. Scott (see [4] and [5]) who restricted the objects of the calculus to continuous functionals over complete lattices, which can be combined in structures where application and abstraction are properly interpreted. It soon became clear that complete lattices were not necessary, and more general structures were introduced. On the other hand the requirement of continuity was essential for the construction, and has remained a basic feature. It is one of the purposes of this paper to show that in the general situation continuity can be replaced by monotonicity.

The work of Scott was extended by Wadsworth [6], who gave a precise formulation of the operational semantics, and proved the equivalence to Scott's interpretation.

Given an abstract logic , generated by a set of quantifiers Qi, one can construct for each type τ a topological space Sτ, exactly as one constructs the Stone space for τ in first-order logic. Letting T be an arbitrary directed set of types, the set is an inverse topological system whose bonding mappings are naturally determined by the reduct operation on structures. We relate the compactness of to the topological properties of ST. For example, if I is countable then is compact iff for every τ each clopen subset of Sτ is of finite type and Sτ, is homeomorphic to limST, where T is the set of finite subtypes of τ. We finally apply our results to concrete logics.

The purpose of this paper is to show that arithmetically minimal systems of notations can be constructed which provide notations for all ramified analytical ordinals (all the ordinals in the minimum β-model for analysis). This is a much larger section of the second number class than the Church-Kleene constructive ordinals (although still only an initial segment of the ordinals). Arithmetic minimality means that if H is an “H-set” associated with an ordinal α in our system and H′ is an H-set associated with the same ordinal α in an arbitrary system of notations S, then H is arithmetical in H′. Thus the arithmetical degrees associated with ordinals in our system are as low as possible.

In order to clarify the structure of degrees of unsolvability and, more generally, to gain a deeper insight into the power set of the integers, coarser but neater classifications than the structure of Turing degrees have been sought. Several hierarchies of sets of integers have been studied, each of which organizes a certain class of sets (or their degrees of unsolvability) into a well-ordering of levels with increasing complexity of nonrecursiveness appearing at each new level. The best known of these hierarchies is the Kleene hierarchy of arithmetical sets.

It is extremely difficult to make general statements about functional completeness. (For the main reference on the subject see Post [2].) In this paper we restrict ourselves to the case of unary functions in a finite valued logic, and prove a result concerning minimal functionally complete sets, along with a necessary and sufficient condition for completeness. A basic familiarity with group theory would be helpful.

A model is called minimal if it does not contain a proper elementary submodel. A class of models is called Σ11(Π11 resp. elementary) if it is axiomatized by a sentence with σ in and some string of predicate symbols. All languages considered are assumed to be countable. For each model we shall define in a natural way its rank, denoted by rk (), which is an ordinal or ∞. Intuitively speaking, rk () is the least upper bound for the number of steps needed to define the elements of by first order formulas; e.g. we shall have rk((ω, <)) = 1 (each element is f.o. definable), rk ((Z, <)) = 2 (no element is f.o. definable, each element is f.o. definable using any other element as a parameter), rk ((Q, <) ) = ∞ (no element is f.o. definable by any number of steps). This notion of rank leads to a useful game theoretic characterization of minimal models which we apply to show that the Π11 class of minimal models is not Σ11.

The theory of computational complexity deals with those functions which can be computed subject to certain restrictions on the resources (for instance, time or memory) available for computation. Blum [5] gave an axiomatic characterization of some of the properties which should be possessed by a measure of computational complexity and established the existence of speed-upable functions—computable functions which fail to possess optimal programs in a particularly strong sense. Recursion theorists tend to like such functions, and people concerned with the specifics of real computing tend to consider such functions somewhat pathological. In Theorem 2 we show that such pathology is rampant: there is a great diversity of behavior among the collections of “run-times” of different functions which do not possess optimal programs, where such diversity is gauged by certain algebraic criteria which have computational significance. Roughly speaking, these algebraic criteria concern the ways in which various functions can be intermixed to satisfy requirements that certain functions can or cannot be computed more easily than certain other functions. (More detailed motivation for the relevance of these algebraic notions is given later.) Specifically, in Theorem 2 we generalize the embeddability theorem of McCreight and Meyer [12] (discussed below) by making speed-upable functions responsible for the embedding.

Validity in recursive structures was investigated by several authors. Kreisel [10] has shown that there exists a consistent sentence of classical predicate calculus (CPC) that does not possess a recursive model. The sentence is a conjunction of the axioms of a variant of Bernays set theory, including the axiom of infinity. The language contains additional constants besides ϵ. Later Kreisel [2] and Mostowski [3] presented a sentence (not possessing recursive models) which was a conjunction of axioms of a variant of Bernays set theory without the axiom of infinity but still with additional constants besides ϵ. Later Mostowski [4] improved the result by giving a sentence which can be demonstrated in Heyting arithmetic to be consistent and to have no recursive models. Rabin [6] obtained a simple proof that some sentence of set theory with the single nonlogical constant ϵ does not have any recursively enumerable models.

More generally, Mostowski [5] has shown that the set of all sentences valid in all RE models is not arithmetical and Vaught [1] improved this result by showing that it holds for a language of one binary relation. In fact, Vaught gives· a way of translating n-place relations to 2-place ones that preserves the RE characteristic of the model. For further results pertaining to recursive models see Vaught [1].

A field K is regularly closed if every absolutely irreducible affine variety defined over K has K-rational points. This notion was first isolated by Ax [A] in his work on the elementary theory of finite fields. Later Jarden [J2] and Jarden and Kiehne [JK] extended this in different directions. One of the primary results in this area is that the elementary properties of a regularly closed field K with a free Galois group (on either finitely or countably many generators) are determined by the set of integer polynomials in one indeterminate with a zero in K. The method of proof employed in [J1], [J2] and [JK] is unusual for algebra since it is a measure-theoretic argument. In this brief summary we have not made any attempt at completeness. We refer the reader to the recent paper of Cherlin, van den Dries, and Macintyre [CDM] and to the forthcoming book by Fried and Jarden [FJ] for a more thorough discussion of the latest results. We would like to thank Moshe Jarden, Angus Macintyre, and Zoe Chatzidakis for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.

A countable field K is ω-free if the absolute Galois group , where is the algebraic closure of K and is the free profinite group on ℵ0 generators.

This paper is a sequel to [3] and it contains, among other things, proofs of the results announced in the last section of that paper.

In §1, we use the general method of [3] together with reflection arguments to study the properties of forcing with Δ perfect trees, for certain Spector pointclasses Γ, obtaining as a main result the existence of a continuum of minimal Δ-degrees for such Γ's, under determinacy hypotheses. In particular, using PD, we prove the existence of continuum many minimal Δ½n+1-degrees, for all n.

Following an idea of Leo Harrington, we extend these results in §2 to show the existence of minimal strict upper bounds for sequences of Δ-degrees which are not too far apart. As a corollary, it is computed that the length of the natural hierarchy of Δ½n+1-degrees is equal to ω when n ≥ 1. (By results of Sacks and Richter the length of the natural hierarchy of -degrees is known to be equal to the first recursively inaccessible ordinal.)

We will follow in this paper standard notation and terminology, as in Moschovakis' book [7]. Letters e, i, j, k, l, m, n vary over the set of natural numbers ω, a, b, c over the Cantor space 2ω and α, β, γ, δ, … over the set of reals ωω. Finally ξ, η, κ, λ always denote ordinals.

Let P be the set of prime numbers. Theorem 1 of [1] shows that the linear case of Schinzel's Hypothesis (H) implies that multiplication is definable in 〈ω,+,P〉 and therefore that the first-order theory of this structure is undecidable. Let m be any fixed natural number >2, let R be the set of natural numbers <m which are prime to m, and let r be any fixed element of R. The set

is infinite (Dirichlet). Theorem 1 of [1] can be improved as follows:

Proposition. The linear case of Schinzel's Hypothesis (H) implies that multiplication is definable in 〈ω,+,Pm,r〉 and therefore that the first-order theory of this structure is undecidable.

Proof. We follow [1] with the following new ingredients. Let k be the number of elements of R, i.e. k = ϕ(m) where ϕ is Euler's totient function. Since k is even, the polynomial g(n) = nk + n satisfies g(0) = g(−1) = 0, so (by Lemma 1 of [1]) it follows from the linear case of (H) that there are natural numbers al (l ϵ ω) such that al+g(0), al+g(1),…, al+g(l) are consecutive primes. Since R is finite, we may assume that all the al's have the same residue t in R, so that al+g(i) ≡ t+1+i (mod m) for i ϵ R. This implies that the function t+1+i (reduced mod m) gives a permutation of R, so we can find s ϵ R such that al+g(s) ≡ r (mod m). Consider the polynomial h(n) = g(s + mn) and let bl = as+ml. Then bl + h(0), bl + h(1),…, bl + h(l) are elements of Pm,r. They are not necessarily consecutive elements of Pm,r, but they are separated by a fixed number of elements of Pm,r. This implies that {h(n) ∣ n ϵ ω} is definable in 〈ω,+,Pm,r〉(by adapting the proof of Theorem 1 of [1]), and the result follows.

The work [11] deals with questions of first-order definability in algebraic function fields. In particular, it exhibits new cases in which the field of constant functions is definable, and it investigates the phenomenon of definable transcendental elements. We fix some of its proofs and make additional observations concerning definable closure in these fields.