Orthogonality in model theory captures the idea of absence of non-trivial interactions between definable sets. We introduce a somewhat opposite notion of cohesiveness, capturing the idea of interaction among all parts of a given definable set. A cohesive set is indecomposable, in the sense that if it is internal to the product of two orthogonal sets, then it is internal to one of the two. We prove that a definable group in an o-minimal structure is a product of cohesive orthogonal subsets. If the group has dimension one, or it is definably simple, then it is itself cohesive. As an application, we show that an abelian group definable in the disjoint union of finitely many o-minimal structures is a quotient, by a discrete normal subgroup, of a direct product of locally definable groups in the single structures.

We develop multisummability, in the positive real direction, for generalized power series with natural support, and we prove o-minimality of the expansion of the real field by all multisums of these series. This resulting structure expands both $\mathbb {R}_{\mathcal {G}}$ and the reduct of $\mathbb {R}_{\text {an}^*}$ generated by all convergent generalized power series with natural support; in particular, its expansion by the exponential function defines both the gamma function on $(0,\infty )$ and the zeta function on $(1,\infty )$.

An exponential $\exp $ on an ordered field $(K,+,-,\cdot ,0,1,<)$ is an order-preserving isomorphism from the ordered additive group $(K,+,0,<)$ to the ordered multiplicative group of positive elements $(K^{>0},\cdot ,1,<)$ . The structure $(K,+,-,\cdot ,0,1,<,\exp )$ is then called an ordered exponential field (cf. [6]). A linearly ordered structure $(M,<,\ldots )$ is called o-minimal if every parametrically definable subset of M is a finite union of points and open intervals of M.

The main subject of this thesis is the algebraic and model theoretic examination of o-minimal exponential fields $(K,+,-,\cdot ,0,1,<,\exp )$ whose exponential satisfies the differential equation $\exp ' = \exp $ with initial condition $\exp (0) = 1$ . This study is mainly motivated by the Transfer Conjecture, which states as follows:

Any o-minimal exponential field $(K,+,-,\cdot ,0,1,<,\exp )$ whose exponential satisfies the differential equation $\exp ' = \exp $ with initial condition $\exp (0)=1$ is elementarily equivalent to $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ .

Here, $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ denotes the real exponential field $(\mathbb {R},+,-,\cdot ,0,1,<,\exp )$ , where $\exp $ denotes the standard exponential $x \mapsto \mathrm {e}^x$ on $\mathbb {R}$ . Moreover, elementary equivalence means that any first-order sentence in the language $\mathcal {L}_{\exp } = \{+,-,\cdot ,0,1, <,\exp \}$ holds for $(K,+,-,\cdot ,0,1,<,\exp )$ if and only if it holds for $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ .

The Transfer Conjecture, and thus the study of o-minimal exponential fields, is of particular interest in the light of the decidability of $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ . To the date, it is not known if $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ is decidable, i.e., whether there exists a procedure determining for a given first-order $\mathcal {L}_{\exp }$ -sentence whether it is true or false in $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ . However, under the assumption of Schanuel’s Conjecture—a famous open conjecture from Transcendental Number Theory—a decision procedure for $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ exists (cf. [7]). Also a positive answer to the Transfer Conjecture would result in the decidability of $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ (cf. [1]). Thus, we study o-minimal exponential fields with regard to the Transfer Conjecture, Schanuel’s Conjecture, and the decidability question of $\mathbb {R}_{\exp }$ .

Overall, we shed light on the valuation theoretic invariants of o-minimal exponential fields—the residue field and the value group—with additional induced structure. Moreover, we explore elementary substructures and extensions of o-minimal exponential fields to the maximal ends—the smallest elementary substructures being prime models and the maximal elementary extensions being contained in the surreal numbers. Further, we draw connections to models of Peano Arithmetic, integer parts, density in real closure, definable Henselian valuations, and strongly NIP ordered fields.

Parts of this thesis were published in [2–5].

Abstract prepared by Lothar Sebastian Krapp

E-mail: [email protected]

URL: https://d-nb.info/1202012558/34

A bipartite graph $H = \left (V_1, V_2; E \right )$ with $\lvert V_1\rvert + \lvert V_2\rvert = n$ is semilinear if $V_i \subseteq \mathbb {R}^{d_i}$ for some $d_i$ and the edge relation E consists of the pairs of points $(x_1, x_2) \in V_1 \times V_2$ satisfying a fixed Boolean combination of s linear equalities and inequalities in $d_1 + d_2$ variables for some s. We show that for a fixed k, the number of edges in a $K_{k,k}$ -free semilinear H is almost linear in n, namely $\lvert E\rvert = O_{s,k,\varepsilon }\left (n^{1+\varepsilon }\right )$ for any $\varepsilon> 0$ ; and more generally, $\lvert E\rvert = O_{s,k,r,\varepsilon }\left (n^{r-1 + \varepsilon }\right )$ for a $K_{k, \dotsc ,k}$ -free semilinear r-partite r-uniform hypergraph.

As an application, we obtain the following incidence bound: given $n_1$ points and $n_2$ open boxes with axis-parallel sides in $\mathbb {R}^d$ such that their incidence graph is $K_{k,k}$ -free, there can be at most $O_{k,\varepsilon }\left (n^{1+\varepsilon }\right )$ incidences. The same bound holds if instead of boxes, one takes polytopes cut out by the translates of an arbitrary fixed finite set of half-spaces.

We also obtain matching upper and (superlinear) lower bounds in the case of dyadic boxes on the plane, and point out some connections to the model-theoretic trichotomy in o-minimal structures (showing that the failure of an almost-linear bound for some definable graph allows one to recover the field operations from that graph in a definable manner).

Drawing on the analogy between any unary first-order quantifier and a “face operator,” this paper establishes several connections between model theory and homotopy theory. The concept of simplicial set is brought into play to describe the formulae of any first-order language L, the definable subsets of any L-structure, as well as the type spaces of any theory expressed in L. An adjunction result is then proved between the category of o-minimal structures and a subcategory of the category of linearly ordered simplicial sets with distinguished vertices.

We show quantifier elimination theorems for real closed valued fields with separated analytic structure and overconvergent analytic structure in their natural one-sorted languages and deduce that such structures are weakly o-minimal. We also provide a short proof that algebraically closed valued fields with separated analytic structure (in any rank) are C-minimal.

In this note, we construct a distal expansion for the structure $$\left( {; + , < ,H} \right)$$, where $H \subseteq $ is a dense $Q$-vector space basis of $R$ (a so-called Hamel basis). Our construction is also an expansion of the dense pair $\left( {; + , < ,} \right)$ and has full quantifier elimination in a natural language.

We investigate bounds in Ramsey’s theorem for relations definable in NIP structures. Applying model-theoretic methods to finitary combinatorics, we generalize a theorem of Bukh and Matousek (Duke Mathematical Journal163(12) (2014), 2243–2270) from the semialgebraic case to arbitrary polynomially bounded $o$-minimal expansions of $\mathbb{R}$, and show that it does not hold in $\mathbb{R}_{\exp }$. This provides a new combinatorial characterization of polynomial boundedness for $o$-minimal structures. We also prove an analog for relations definable in $P$-minimal structures, in particular for the field of the $p$-adics. Generalizing Conlon et al. (Transactions of the American Mathematical Society366(9) (2014), 5043–5065), we show that in distal structures the upper bound for $k$-ary definable relations is given by the exponential tower of height $k-1$.

We consider definable topological dynamics for NIP groups admitting certain decompositions in terms of specific classes of definably amenable groups. For such a group, we find a description of the Ellis group of its universal definable flow. This description shows that the Ellis group is of bounded size. Under additional assumptions, it is shown to be independent of the model, proving a conjecture proposed by Newelski. Finally we apply the results to new classes of groups definable in o-minimal structures, generalizing all of the previous results for this setting.

We give an example of a dense o-minimal structure in which there is a definable quotient that cannot be eliminated, even after naming parameters. Equivalently, there is an interpretable set which cannot be put in parametrically definable bijection with any definable set. This gives a negative answer to a question of Eleftheriou, Peterzil, and Ramakrishnan. Additionally, we show that interpretable sets in dense o-minimal structures admit definable topologies which are “tame” in several ways: (a) they are Hausdorff, (b) every point has a neighborhood which is definably homeomorphic to a definable set, (c) definable functions are piecewise continuous, (d) definable subsets have finitely many definably connected components, and (e) the frontier of a definable subset has lower dimension than the subset itself.

We prove model completeness for the expansion of the real field by the Weierstrass ℘ function as a function of the variable z and the parameter (or period) τ. We need to existentially define the partial derivatives of the ℘ function with respect to the variable z and the parameter τ. To obtain this result, it is necessary to include in the structure function symbols for the unrestricted exponential function and restricted sine function, the Weierstrass ζ function and the quasi-modular form E2 (we conjecture that these functions are not existentially definable from the functions ℘ alone or even if we use the exponential and restricted sine functions). We prove some auxiliary model-completeness results with the same functions composed with appropriate change of variables. In the conclusion, we make some remarks about the non-effectiveness of our proof and the difficulties to be overcome to obtain an effective model-completeness result, and how to extend these results to appropriate expansion of the real field by automorphic forms.

We explain which Weierstrass ${\wp}$-functions are locally definable from other ${\wp}$-functions and exponentiation in the context of o-minimal structures. The proofs make use of the predimension method from model theory to exploit functional transcendence theorems in a systematic way.

This paper is devoted to o-minimalism, the study of the first-order properties of o-minimal structures. The main protagonists are the pseudo-o-minimal structures, that is to say, the models of the theory of all o-minimal L-structures, but we start with a more in-depth analysis of the well-known fragment DCTC (Definable Completeness/Type Completeness), and show how it already admits many of the properties of o-minimal structures: dimension theory, monotonicity, Hardy structures, and quasi-cell decomposition, provided one replaces finiteness by discreteness in all of these. Failure of cell decomposition leads to the related notion of a eukaryote structure, and we give a criterium for a pseudo-o-minimal structure to be eukaryote.

To any pseudo-o-minimal structure, we can associate its Grothendieck ring, which in the non-o-minimal case is a nontrivial invariant. To study this invariant, we identify a third o-minimalistic property, the Discrete Pigeonhole Principle, which in turn allows us to define discretely valued Euler characteristics. As an application, we study certain analytic subsets, called Taylor sets.

Fix a language extending the language of ordered fields by at least one new predicate or function symbol. Call an L-structure R pseudo-o-minimal if it is (elementarily equivalent to) an ultraproduct of o-minimal structures. We show that for any recursive list of L-sentences , there is a real closed field satisfying which is not pseudo-o-minimal. This shows that the theory To−min consisting of those -sentences true in all o-minimal -structures, also called the theory of o-minimality (for L), is not recursively axiomatizable. And, in particular, there are locally o-minimal, definably complete expansions of real closed fields which are not pseudo-o-minimal.

Let ${\cal N}\left( G \right)$ be the maximal normal definable torsion-free subgroup of a group G definable in an o-minimal structure M. We prove that the quotient $G/{\cal N}\left( G \right)$ has a maximal definably compact subgroup K, which is definably connected and unique up to conjugation. Moreover, we show that K has a definable torsion-free complement, i.e., there is a definable torsion-free subgroup H such that $G/{\cal N}\left( G \right) = K \cdot H$ and $K\mathop \cap \nolimits^ \,H = \left\{ e \right\}$. It follows that G is definably homeomorphic to $K \times {M^s}$ (with $s = {\rm{dim}}\,G - {\rm{dim}}\,K$), and homotopy equivalent to K. This gives a (definably) topological reduction to the compact case, in analogy with Lie groups.

We explain how the André–Oort conjecture for a general Shimura variety can be deduced from the hyperbolic Ax–Lindemann conjecture, a good lower bound for Galois orbits of special points and the definability, in the $o$-minimal structure ${ \mathbb{R} }_{\mathrm{an} , \mathrm{exp} } $, of the restriction to a fundamental set of the uniformizing map of a Shimura variety. These ingredients are known in some important cases. As a consequence a proof of the André–Oort conjecture for projective special subvarieties of ${ \mathcal{A} }_{6}^{N} $ for an arbitrary integer $N$ is given.

We describe a recent program from the study of definable groups in certain o-minimal structures. A central notion of this program is that of a (geometric) lattice. We propose a definition of a lattice in an arbitrary first-order structure. We then use it to describe, uniformly, various structure theorems for o-minimal groups, each time recovering a lattice that captures some significant invariant of the group at hand. The analysis first goes through a local level, where a pertinent notion of pregeometry and generic elements is each time introduced.

We introduce the Hausdorff measure for definable sets in an o-minimal structure, and prove the Cauchy–Crofton and co-area formulae for the o-minimal Hausdorff measure. We also prove that every definable set can be partitioned into “basic rectifiable sets”, and that the Whitney arc property holds for basic rectifiable sets.

We introduce a very weak language on p-adic fields K, which is just rich enough to have exactly the same definable subsets of the line K that one has using the ring language. (In our context, definable always means definable with parameters.) We prove that the only definable functions in the language are trivial functions. We also give a definitional expansion of in which K has quantifier elimination, and we obtain a cell decomposition result for -definable sets.

Our language can serve as a p-adic analogue of the very weak language (<) on the real numbers, to define a notion of minimality on the field of p-adic numbers and on related valued fields. These fields are not necessarily Henselian and may have positive characteristic.