Past Advanced Class Logic

For a complete theory T, Lascar associated with it a Galois group which we call the Lacsar group. We will talk about some of my work on recovering the Lascar group as the fundamental group of Mod(T) and some recent progress in understanding the higher homotopy groups.

The local Kronecker-Weber theorem states that the maximal abelian extension of p-adic numbers Q_p is obtained from this field by adjoining all roots of unity. In 2018, Koenigsmann conjectured that the maximal abelian extension of Q_p is decidable. In my talk, we will discuss Koenigsmann's proposed axiomatisation. In contrast, the maximal unramified extension of Q_p is known to be decidable, admitting a complete axiomatisation by an informed but simple set of axioms (this is due to Kochen). We explain how the question of completeness can be reduced to an Ax-Kochen-Ershov result in residue characteristic 0 by the method of coarsening.

The Zilber-Pink Conjecture, which should rule the behaviour of intersections between an algebraic variety and a countable family of "special varieties", does not take into account double intersections; some results related to tangencies with special subvarieties have been obtained by Marché-Maurin in 2014 in the case of powers of the multiplicative group and by Corvaja-Demeio-Masser-Zannier in 2019 in the case of elliptic schemes. We prove that any algebraic curve contained in Y(1)^2 is tangent to finitely many modular curves, which are the one-codimensional special subvarieties. The proof uses the Pila-Zannier strategy: the Pila-Wilkie counting theorem is combined with a degree bound coming from a Weakly Bounded Height estimate. The seminar will be divided into two talks: in the first one, we will explain the general Zilber-Pink Conjecture philosophy, we will describe the main tools used in this context and we will see what the differences in the double intersection case are; in the second one, we will focus on the proofs and we will see how o-minimality plays a main role here. In the case of a curve in Y(1)^2, o-minimality is also used for height estimates (which are then ineffective, which is usually not the case).

The Zilber-Pink Conjecture, which should rule the behaviour of intersections between an algebraic variety and a countable family of "special varieties", does not take into account double intersections; some results related to tangencies with special subvarieties have been obtained by Marché-Maurin in 2014 in the case of powers of the multiplicative group and by Corvaja-Demeio-Masser-Zannier in 2019 in the case of elliptic schemes. We prove that any algebraic curve contained in Y(1)^2 is tangent to finitely many modular curves, which are the one-codimensional special subvarieties. The proof uses the Pila-Zannier strategy: the Pila-Wilkie counting theorem is combined with a degree bound coming from a Weakly Bounded Height estimate. The seminar will be divided into two talks: in the first one, we will explain the general Zilber-Pink Conjecture philosophy, we will describe the main tools used in this context and we will see what the differences in the double intersection case are; in the second one, we will focus on the proofs and we will see how o-minimality plays a main role here. In the case of a curve in Y(1)^2, o-minimality is also used for height estimates (which are then ineffective, which is usually not the case).

I will give an overview of new ideas showing up in arithmetic intersection theory based on some exciting talks that appeared at the very recent conference "Global invariants of arithmetic varieties". I will also outline connections to globally valued fields and some classical problems.

.. showing that a field K is isomorphic to Q if it has the same absolute Galois group and if it satisfies a very small additional condition (very similar to my talk 2 years ago).

What makes an intersection likely or unlikely? A simple dimension count shows that two varieties of dimension r and s are non "likely" to intersect if r < codim s, unless there are some special geometrical relations among them. A series of conjectures due to Bombieri-Masser-Zannier, Zilber and Pink rely on this philosophy. I will speak about a joint work with F. Barroero (Basel) in this framework in the special case of a curve in a family of elliptic curves. The proof is based on Pila-Zannier method, combining diophantine ingredients with a refinement of a theorem of Pila and Wilkie about counting rational points in sets definable in o-minimal structures.
   Everyone welcome!
 

Using results by Eisenbud, Schoutens and Zilber I will propose a model theoretic structure that aims to capture the algebra (or geometry) of a non reduced scheme over an algebraically closed field. 

Abstract: We will consider a model theoretic approach to Gelfand-Naimark duality, from the point of view of (generalized) Zariski structures. In particular we will show quantifier elimination for compact Hausdorff spaces in the natural Zariski language. Moreover we may see a slightly unusual construction and tweak to the language, which improves stability properties of the structures.
 

In this talk I will present some answers to the question when every specialisation from a \kappa-saturated extension of 
a Zariski structure is \kappa-universal? I will show that for algebraically closed fields, all specialisations from a \kappa-
saturated extension is \kappa-universal. More importantly, I will consider this question for finite and infinite covers of
Zariski structures. In these cases I will present a counterexample to show that there are covers of Zariski structures 
which have specialisations from a \kappa-saturated extension that are not \kappa-universal. I will present some natural 
conditions on the fibres under which all specialisations from a \kappa-saturated extension of a cover is \kappa-universal. 
I will explain how this work points towards a prospective Ladder Theorem for Specialisations and explain difficulties and 
further works that needs to be considered.
 

This will be a little potpourri containing some of the recent developments on the model theory of F_p((t)) and of algebraic extensions of Q_p.

 "We give a diophantine criterion for a polynomial with rational coefficients not to have any
rational zero, i.e. an existential formula in terms of the coefficients expressing this property. This can be seen as a kind of restricted
model-completeness for Q and answers a question of Koenigsmann."

following the joint paper with L.Shaheen http://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/zilber/wLb.pdf

I will explain how algebraic spaces can be presented as Zariski geometries and prove some classical facts about algebraic spaces using the theory of Zariski geometries.

I will report on some joint work with Jacob Tsimerman
concerning multiplicative relations among singular moduli.
Our results rely on the ``Ax-Schanuel'' theorem for the j-function
recently proved by us, which I will describe.

 This is joint work with Angus Macintyre. We prove a general model-completeness theorem for Henselian valued fields
stating that a Henselian valued field of characteristic zero with value group a Z-group and with finite ramification is model-complete in the language of rings provided that its residue field is model-complete. We apply this to extensions of p-adic fields showing that any finite or infinite extension of p-adics with finite ramification is model-complete in the language of rings.

Motivated by an open conjecture in anabelian geometry, we investigate which arithmetic properties of the rationals are encoded in the absolute Galois group G_Q. We give a model-theoretic framework for studying absolute Galois groups and discuss in what respect orderings and valuations of the field are known to their first-order theory. Some questions regarding local-global principles and the transfer to elementary extensions of Q are raised.

Everything measurable about a quantum system, as modelled by a noncommutative operator algebra, is captured by its commutative subalgebras. We briefly survey this programme, and zoom in one specific incarnation: any bilinear associative function on the set of n-by-n matrices over a field of characteristic not two, that makes the same vectors orthogonal as ordinary matrix multiplication and gives the same trace as ordinary matrix multiplication, must in fact be ordinary matrix multiplication (or its opposite). Model-theoretic questions about the hypotheses and scope of this theorem are raised.

we discuss various conjectures about the absolute Galois group G_Q  of the field Q of rational numbers and to what extent it encodes the elementary theory of Q.

In this talk, I will introduce an internal, structural 
characterisation of certain convergence properties (Fréchet-Urysohn, or 
more generally, radiality) and apply this structure to understand when 
Stone spaces have these properties. This work can be generalised to 
certain Zariski topologies and perhaps to larger classes of spaces 
obtained from other structures.

"We consider certain distinguished extensions of the field F_p((t)) of formal Laurent series over F_p, and look at questions about their model theory and Galois theory, with a particular focus on decidability."