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.

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.

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.

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 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 $.

It is proved in this article that the theory of separably closed nontrivially valued fields of characteristic p > 0 and imperfection degree e > 0 (e ≤ ∞) has quantifier elimination in the language ${{\cal L}_{p,{\rm{div}}}} = \{ + , - , \times ,0,1\} \cup {\{ {\lambda _{n,j}}(x;{y_1}, \ldots ,{y_n})\} _{0 \le n < \omega ,0 \le j < {p^n}}} \cup \{ |\}$; in particular, when e is finite, the corresponding theory has quantifier elimination in the language ${\cal L} = \{ + , - , \times ,0,1\} \cup \{ {b_1}, \ldots ,{b_e}\} \cup {\{ {\lambda _{e,j}}(x;{b_1}, \ldots ,{b_e})\} _{0 \le j < {p^e}}} \cup \{ |\}$.

We prove that if the linear-time and polynomial-time hierarchies coincide, then every model of Π1(ℕ) + ¬Ω1 has a proper end-extension to a model of Π1(ℕ), and so Π1(ℕ) + ¬Ω ⊢ BΣ1. Under an even stronger complexity-theoretic assumption which nevertheless seems hard to disprove using present-day methods, Π1(ℕ) + ¬Exp ⊢ BΣ1. Both assumptions can be modified to versions which make it possible to replace Π1(ℕ) by IΔ0 as the base theory.

We also show that any proof that IΔ0 + ¬Exp does not prove a given finite fragment of BΣ1 has to be “nonrelativizing”, in the sense that it will not work in the presence of an arbitrary oracle.

The objective of this article is to characterise elimination of finite generalised imaginaries as defined in [9] in terms of group cohomology. As an application, I consider series of Zariski geometries constructed [10, 23, 24] by Hrushovski and Zilber and indicate how their nondefinability in algebraically closed fields is connected to eliminability of certain generalised imaginaries.

We show that the class of graded c-nilpotent Lie algebras over a fixed field K is closed under free amalgamation. In [1] this result was applied, but its proof was incorrect. In case of a finite field K we obtain a Fraïssé limit of all finite graded c-nilpotent Lie algebras over K. This gives an example for the following more general considerations. The existence of free amalgamation for the age of a Fraïssé limit implies the universality of its automorphism group for all automorphism groups of substructures of that Fraïssé limit. We use [6] and [5].

We prove that the system of strong impredicative NF is not a part of a consistent 3-stratified extension of NF3.

We say a structure ${\cal M}$ in a first-order language ${\cal L}$ is indivisible if for every coloring of its universe in two colors, there is a monochromatic substructure ${\cal M}\prime \subseteq {\cal M}$ such that ${\cal M}\prime \cong {\cal M}$. Additionally, we say that ${\cal M}$ is symmetrically indivisible if ${\cal M}\prime$ can be chosen to be symmetrically embedded in ${\cal M}$ (that is, every automorphism of ${\cal M}\prime$ can be extended to an automorphism of ${\cal M}$). Similarly, we say that ${\cal M}$ is elementarily indivisible if ${\cal M}\prime$ can be chosen to be an elementary substructure. We define new products of structures in a relational language. We use these products to give recipes for construction of elementarily indivisible structures which are not transitive and elementarily indivisible structures which are not symmetrically indivisible, answering two questions presented by A. Hasson, M. Kojman, and A. Onshuus.

One of the basic concepts of set theoretic geology is the mantle of a model of set theory V: it is the intersection of all grounds of V, that is, of all inner models M of V such that V is a set-forcing extension of M. The main theme of the present paper is to identify situations in which the mantle turns out to be a fine structural extender model. The first main result is that this is the case when the universe is constructible from a set and there is an inner model with a Woodin cardinal. The second situation like that arises if L[E] is an extender model that is iterable in V but not internally iterable, as guided by P-constructions, L[E] has no strong cardinal, and the extender sequence E is ordinal definable in L[E] and its forcing extensions by collapsing a cutpoint to ω (in an appropriate sense). The third main result concerns the Solid Core of a model of set theory. This is the union of all sets that are constructible from a set of ordinals that cannot be added by set-forcing to an inner model. The main result here is that if there is an inner model with a Woodin cardinal, then the solid core is a fine-structural extender model.

We study Turing degrees a for which there is a countable structure ${\cal A}$ whose degree spectrum is the collection {x : x ≰ a}. In particular, for degrees a from the interval [0′, 0″], such a structure exists if a′ = 0″, and there are no such structures if a″ > 0‴.

The theory of (ℝ, <, +, ℤ, ℤa) is decidable if a is quadratic. If a is the golden ratio, (ℝ, <, +, ℤ, ℤa) defines multiplication by a. The results are established by using the Ostrowski numeration system based on the continued fraction expansion of a to define the above structures in monadic second order logic of one successor. The converse that (ℝ, <, +, ℤ, ℤa) defines monadic second order logic of one successor, will also be established.

A coarse description of a set A ⊆ ω is a set D ⊆ ω such that the symmetric difference of A and D has asymptotic density 0. We study the extent to which noncomputable information can be effectively recovered from all coarse descriptions of a given set A, especially when A is effectively random in some sense. We show that if A is 1-random and B is computable from every coarse description D of A, then B is K-trivial, which implies that if A is in fact weakly 2-random then B is computable. Our main tool is a kind of compactness theorem for cone-avoiding descriptions, which also allows us to prove the same result for 1-genericity in place of weak 2-randomness. In the other direction, we show that if $A \le _{{\rm{T}}} \emptyset {\rm{'}}$ is a 1-random set, then there is a noncomputable c.e. set computable from every coarse description of A, but that not all K-trivial sets are computable from every coarse description of some 1-random set. We study both uniform and nonuniform notions of coarse reducibility. A set Y is uniformly coarsely reducible to X if there is a Turing functional Φ such that if D is a coarse description of X, then ΦD is a coarse description of Y. A set B is nonuniformly coarsely reducible to A if every coarse description of A computes a coarse description of B. We show that a certain natural embedding of the Turing degrees into the coarse degrees (both uniform and nonuniform) is not surjective. We also show that if two sets are mutually weakly 3-random, then their coarse degrees form a minimal pair, in both the uniform and nonuniform cases, but that the same is not true of every pair of relatively 2-random sets, at least in the nonuniform coarse degrees.

Let M be a transitive model of ZFC. We say that a transitive model of ZFC, N, is an outer model of M if M ⊆ N and ORD ∩ M = ORD ∩ N. The outer model theory of M is the collection of all formulas with parameters from M which hold in all outer models of M (which exist in a universe in which M is countable; this is independent of the choice of such a universe). Satisfaction defined with respect to outer models can be seen as a useful strengthening of first-order logic. Starting from an inaccessible cardinal κ, we show that it is consistent to have a transitive model M of ZFC of size κ in which the outer model theory is lightface definable, and moreover M satisfies V = HOD. The proof combines the infinitary logic L∞,ω, Barwise’s results on admissible sets, and a new forcing iteration of length strictly less than κ+ which manipulates the continuum function on certain regular cardinals below κ. In the appendix, we review some unpublished results of Mack Stanley which are directly related to our topic.

The Stone representation theorem was a milestone for the understanding of Boolean algebras. From Stone’s theorem, every Boolean algebra is representable as a field of sets with a topological structure. By means of this, the structural elements of any Boolean algebra, as well as the relations between them, are represented geometrically and can be clearly visualized. It is no different for cylindric algebras: Suppose that ${\frak A}$ is a cylindric algebra and ${\cal S}$ is the Stone space of its Boolean part. (Among the elements of the Boolean part are the diagonal elements.) It is known that with nothing more than a family of equivalence relations on ${\cal S}$ to represent quantifiers, ${\cal S}$ represents the full cylindric structure just as the Stone space alone represents the Boolean structure. ${\cal S}$ with this structure is called a cylindric space.

Many assertions about cylindric algebras can be stated in terms of elementary topological properties of ${\cal S}$. Moreover, points of ${\cal S}$ may be construed as models, and on that construal ${\cal S}$ is called a model space. Certain relations between points on this space turn out to be morphisms between models, and the space of models with these relations hints at the possibility of an “abstract” model theory. With these ideas, a point-set version of model theory is proposed, in the spirit of pointless topology or category theory, in which the central insight is to treat the semantic objects (models) homologously with the corresponding syntactic objects so they reside together in the same space.

It is shown that there is a new, purely algebraic way of introducing constants in cylindric algebras, leading to a simplified proof of the representation theorem for locally finite cylindric algebras. Simple rich algebras emerge as homomorphic images of cylindric algebras. The topological version of this theorem is especially interesting: The Stone space of every locally finite cylindric algebra ${\frak A}$ can be partitioned into subspaces which are the Stone spaces of all the simple rich homomorphic images of ${\frak A}$. Each of these images completely determines a model of ${\frak A}$, and all denumerable models of ${\frak A}$ appear in this representation.

The Stone space ${\cal S}$ of every cylindric algebra can likewise be partitioned into closed sets which are duals of all the types in ${\frak A}$. This fact yields new insights into miscellaneous results in the model theory of saturated models.

Answering a question of Junker and Ziegler, we construct a countable first order structure which is not ω-categorical, but does not have any proper nontrivial reducts, in either of two senses (model-theoretic, and group-theoretic). We also construct a strongly minimal set which is not ω-categorical but has no proper nontrivial reducts in the model-theoretic sense.

Schweber [10] defined a reducibility that allows us to compare the computing power of structures of arbitrary cardinality. Here we focus on the ordered field ${\cal R}$ of real numbers and a structure ${\cal W}$ that just codes the subsets of ω. In [10], it was observed that ${\cal W}$ is reducible to ${\cal R}$. We prove that ${\cal R}$ is not reducible to ${\cal W}$. As part of the proof, we show that for a countable recursively saturated real closed field ${\cal P}$ with residue field k, some copy of ${\cal P}$ does not compute a copy of k.

We show that the class of ${\cal L}$-constructible functions is closed under integration for any P-minimal expansion of a p-adic field $\left( {K,{\cal L}} \right)$. This generalizes results previously known for semi-algebraic and subanalytic structures. As part of the proof, we obtain a weak version of cell decomposition and function preparation for P-minimal structures, a result which is independent of the existence of Skolem functions. A direct corollary is that Denef’s results on the rationality of Poincaré series hold in any P-minimal expansion of a p-adic field $\left( {K,{\cal L}} \right)$.