In this paper we answer the question of whether all low sets with the splitting property are promptly simple. Further we try to make the role of lowness properties and prompt simplicity in the construction of automorphisms of the lattice of r.e. (recursively enumerable) sets more perspicuous. It turns out that two new properties of r.e. sets, which are dual to each other, are essential in this context: the prompt and the low shrinking property.

In an earlier paper [4] we had shown (using Soare's automorphism construction [10] and [12]) that all r.e. generic sets are automorphic in the lattice ℰ of r.e. sets under inclusion. We called a set A promptly simple if Ā is infinite and there is a recursive enumeration of A and the r.e. sets (We)e∈N such that if We is infinite then there is some element (or equivalently: infinitely many elements) x of We such that x gets into A “promptly” after its appearance in We (i.e. for some fixed total recursive function f we have x ∈ Af(s), where s is the stage at which x entered We). Prompt simplicity in combination with lowness turned out to capture those properties of r.e. generic sets that were used in the mentioned automorphism result. In a following paper with Shore and Stob [7] we studied an ℰ-definable consequence of prompt simplicity: the splitting property.