Galois groups as quotients of Polish groups

We present the (Lascar) Galois group of any countable theory as a quotient of a compact Polish group by an [Formula: see text] normal subgroup: in general, as a topological group, and under NIP, also in terms of Borel cardinality. This allows us to obtain similar results for arbitrary strong types defined on a single complete type over [Formula: see text]. As an easy conclusion of our main theorem, we get the main result of [K. Krupiński, A. Pillay and T. Rzepecki, Topological dynamics and the complexity of strong types, Israel J. Math. 228 (2018) 863–932] which says that for any strong type defined on a single complete type over [Formula: see text], smoothness is equivalent to type-definability. We also explain how similar results are obtained in the case of bounded quotients of type-definable groups. This gives us a generalization of a former result from the paper mentioned above about bounded quotients of type-definable subgroups of definable groups.

Automorphisms moving all non-algebraic points and an application to NF

Section 1 is devoted to the study of countable recursively saturated models with an automorphism moving every non-algebraic point. We show that every countable theory has such a model and exhibit necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of automorphisms moving all non-algebraic points. Furthermore we show that there are many complete theories with the property that every countable recursively saturated model has such an automorphism.In Section 2 we apply our main theorem from Section 1 to models of Quine's set theory New Foundations (NF) to answer an old consistency question. If NF is consistent, then it has a model in which the standard natural numbers are a definable subclass ℕ of the model's set of internal natural numbers Nn. In addition, in this model the class of wellfounded sets is exactly .

Omitting types in incomplete theories

We characterize omissibility of a type, or a family of types, in a countable theory in terms of non-existence of a certain tree of formulas. We extend results of L. Newelski on omitting < covK non-isolated types. As a consequence we prove that omissibility of a family of < covK types is equivalent to omissibility of each countable subfamily.

On the existence of atomic models

We give an example of a countable theory T such that for every cardinal λ ≥ ℵ2 there is a fully indiscernible set A of power λ such that the principal types are dense over A, yet there is no atomic model of T over A. In particular, T(A) is a theory of size λ where the principal types are dense, yet T(A) has no atomic model.

Rich models

We define a rich model to be one which contains a proper elementary substructure isomorphic to itself. Existence, nonstructure, and categoricity theorems for rich models are proved. A theory T which has fewer than min(2λ, ℶ2) rich models of cardinality λ (λ > ∣T∣) is totally transcendental. We show that a countable theory with a unique rich model in some uncountable cardinal is categorical in ℵ1 and also has a unique countable rich model. We also consider a stronger notion of richness, and use it to characterize superstable theories.

Omitting types and the real line

We investigate some relations between omitting types of a countable theory and some notions defined in terms of the real line, such as for example the ideal of meager subsets ofR. We also try to express connections between the logical structure of a theory and the existence of its countable models omitting certain families of types.It is well known that assuming MA we can omit <nonisolated types. But MA is rather a strong axiom. We prove that in order to be able to omit <nonisolated types it is sufficient to assume that the real line cannot be covered by less thanmeager sets; and this is in fact the weakest possible condition. It is worth pointing out that by means of forcing we can easily obtain the model of ZFC in whichRcannot be covered by <meager sets. It suffices to add to the ground modelCohen generic reals.We also formulate similar results for omitting pairwise contradictory types. It turns out that from some point of view it is much more difficult to find the family of pairwise contradictory types which cannot be omitted by a model ofT, than to find such a family of possibly noncontradictory types. Moreover, for any two countable theoriesT1,T2without prime models, the existence of a family ofκtypes which cannot be omitted by a model ofT1is equivalent to the existence of such a family forT2. This means that from the point of view of omitting types all theories without prime models are identical. Similar results hold for omitting pairwise contradictory types.

Why some people are excited by Vaught's conjecture

§I. In 1961, R. L. Vaught ([V]) asked if one could prove, without the continuum hypothesis, that there exists a countable complete theory with exactly ℵ1 isomorphism types of countable models. The following statement is known as Vaught conjecture:Let T be a countable theory. If T has uncountably many countable models, then T hascountable models.More than twenty years later, this question is still open. Many papers have been written on the question: see for example [HM], [M1], [M2] and [St]. In the opinion of many people, it is a major problem in model theory.Of course, I cannot say what Vaught had in mind when he asked the question. I just want to explain here what meaning I personally see to this problem. In particular, I will not speak about the topological Vaught conjecture, which is quite another issue.I suppose that the first question I shall have to face is the following: “Why on earth are you interested in the number of countable models—particularly since the whole question disappears if we assume the continuum hypothesis?” The answer is simply that I am not interested in the number of countable models, nor in the number of models in any cardinality, as a matter of fact. An explanation is due here; it will be a little technical and it will rest upon two names: Scott (sentences) and Morley (theorem).

Quelques précisions sur la D.O.P. et la profondeur d'une théorie

We give here alternative definitions for the notions that S. Shelah has introduced in recent papers: the dimensional order property and the depth of a theory. We will also give a proof that the depth of a countable theory, when denned, is an ordinal recursive in T.

On the number of countable homogeneous models

The number of homogeneous models has been studied in [1] and other papers. But the number of countable homogeneous models of a countable theory T is not determined when dropping the GCH. Morley in [2] proves that if a countable theory T has more than ℵ1 nonisomorphic countable models, then it has such models. He conjectures that if a countable theory T has more than ℵ0 nonisomorphic countable models, then it has such models. In this paper we show that if a countable theory T has more than ℵ0 nonisomorphic countable homogeneous models, then it has such models.We adopt the conventions in [1]–[3]. Throughout the paper T is a theory and the language of T is denoted by L which is countable.Lemma 1. If a theory T has more than ℵ0types, then T hasnonisomorphic countable homogeneous models.Proof. Suppose that T has more than ℵ0 types. From [2, Corollary 2.4] T has types. Let σ be a Ttype with n variables, and T′ = T ⋃ {σ(c1, …, cn)}, where c1, …, cn are new constants. T′ is consistent and has a countable model (, a1, …, an). From [3, Theorem 3.2.8] the reduced model has a countable homogeneous elementary extension . σ is realized in . This shows that every type σ is realized in at least one countable homogeneous model of T. But each countable model can realize at most ℵ0 types. Hence T has at least countable homogeneous models. On the other hand, a countable theory can have at most nonisomorphic countable models. Hence the number of nonisomorphic countable homogeneous models of T is .In the following, we shall use the languages Lα (α = 0, 1, 2) defined in [2]. We give a brief description of them. For a countable theory T, let K be the class of all models of T. L = L0 is countable.

Countable models of multidimensional ℵ0-stable theories

The notations and the definitions used here are identical to those in [B.L.]. We also assume that the reader is familiar with the properties of the Rudin-Keisler order on types [L.].Let T denote an ℵ0-stable countable theory. The main result in [B.L.] is: All countable models of T are almost homogeneous if and only if T satisfies(*) For all models M of T and all ā ∈ M, if p ∈ S1(ā) is strongly regular multidimensional, then Dim(p; M) ≥ ℵ0.In this paper we investigate the case of a theory T which does not satisfy condition (*) and, under certain additional assumptions, we construct nonisomorphic and non-almost-homogeneous countable models. The same type of construction has been used before to show that if T is multidimensional, then for all α ≥ 1, T has at least nonisomorphic models of cardinality ℵα [La.], [Sh.]. As a corollary of our main theorem (Theorem 6) and of the previous result in [B.L.], we prove Vaught's Conjecture (and, in fact, Martin's Strong Conjecture) for theories T with αT finite.Although we are here interested in countable models, we can also note that our construction proves that theories satisfying the assumptions in Theorem 6 have at least nonisomorphic models of cardinality ℵα.