For any subset $Z \subseteq {\mathbb {Q}}$, consider the set $S_Z$ of subfields $L\subseteq {\overline {\mathbb {Q}}}$ which contain a co-infinite subset $C \subseteq L$ that is universally definable in L such that $C \cap {\mathbb {Q}}=Z$. Placing a natural topology on the set ${\operatorname {Sub}({\overline {\mathbb {Q}}})}$ of subfields of ${\overline {\mathbb {Q}}}$, we show that if Z is not thin in ${\mathbb {Q}}$, then $S_Z$ is meager in ${\operatorname {Sub}({\overline {\mathbb {Q}}})}$. Here, thin and meager both mean “small”, in terms of arithmetic geometry and topology, respectively. For example, this implies that only a meager set of fields L have the property that the ring of algebraic integers $\mathcal {O}_L$ is universally definable in L. The main tools are Hilbert’s Irreducibility Theorem and a new normal form theorem for existential definitions. The normal form theorem, which may be of independent interest, says roughly that every $\exists $-definable subset of an algebraic extension of ${\mathbb Q}$ is a finite union of single points and projections of hypersurfaces defined by absolutely irreducible polynomials.

Let E be an elliptic curve with positive rank over a number field K and let p be an odd prime number. Let $K_{\operatorname {cyc}}$ be the cyclotomic $\mathbb {Z}_p$ -extension of K and $K_n$ its nth layer. The Mordell–Weil rank of E is said to be constant in the cyclotomic tower of K if for all n, the rank of $E(K_n)$ is equal to the rank of $E(K)$ . We apply techniques in Iwasawa theory to obtain explicit conditions for the rank of an elliptic curve to be constant in this sense. We then indicate the potential applications to Hilbert’s tenth problem for number rings.

For a ring R, Hilbert’s Tenth Problem $HTP(R)$ is the set of polynomial equations over R, in several variables, with solutions in R. We view $HTP$ as an enumeration operator, mapping each set W of prime numbers to $HTP(\mathbb {Z}[W^{-1}])$ , which is naturally viewed as a set of polynomials in $\mathbb {Z}[X_1,X_2,\ldots ]$ . It is known that for almost all W, the jump $W'$ does not $1$ -reduce to $HTP(R_W)$ . In contrast, we show that every Turing degree contains a set W for which such a $1$ -reduction does hold: these W are said to be HTP-complete. Continuing, we derive additional results regarding the impossibility that a decision procedure for $W'$ from $HTP(\mathbb {Z}[W^{-1}])$ can succeed uniformly on a set of measure $1$ , and regarding the consequences for the boundary sets of the $HTP$ operator in case $\mathbb {Z}$ has an existential definition in $\mathbb {Q}$ .

Let L be a recursive algebraic extension of ℚ. Assume that, given α ∈ L, we can compute the roots in L of its minimal polynomial over ℚ and we can determine which roots are Aut(L)-conjugate to α. We prove that there exists a pair of polynomials that characterizes the Aut(L)-conjugates of α, and that these polynomials can be effectively computed. Assume furthermore that L can be embedded in ℝ, or in a finite extension of ℚp (with p an odd prime). Then we show that subsets of L[X]k that are recursively enumerable for every recursive presentation of L[X], are diophantine over L[X].