Past Logic Seminar

I will speak about the Zilber trichotomy for weakly minimal difference varieties, and the definable structure on them.

A difference field is a field with a distinguished automorphism $\sigma$. Solution sets of systems of polynomial difference equations like

$3 x \sigma(x) +4x +\sigma^2(x) +17 =0$ are the quantifier-free definable subsets of difference fields. These \emph{difference varieties} are similar to varieties in algebraic geometry, except uglier, both from an algebraic and from a model-theoretic point of view.

ACFA, the model-companion of the theory of difference fields, is a supersimple theory whose minimal (i.e. U-rank $1$) types satisfy the Zilber's Trichotomy Conjecture that any non-trivial definable structure on the set of realizations of a minimal type $p$ must come from a definable one-based group or from a definable field. Every minimal type $p$ in ACFA contains a (weakly) minimal quantifier-free formula $\phi_p$, and often the difference variety defined by $\phi_p$ determines which case of the Zilber Trichotomy $p$ belongs to.

I will push Schanuel's conjecture in four directions: defining a dimension

theory (pregeometry), blurred exponential functions, exponential maps of

more general groups, and converses. The goal is to explain how Zilber's

conjecture on complex exponentiation is true at least in a "geometric"

sense, and how this can be proved without solving the difficult number

theoretic conjectures. If time permits, I will explain some connections

with diophantine geometry.

We survey the classification of structures interpretable in o-minimal theories in terms of thorn-minimal types. We show that a necessary and sufficient condition for such a structure to interpret a real closed field is that it has a non-locally modular unstable type. We also show that assuming Zilber's Trichotomy for strongly minimal sets interpretable in o-minimal theories, such a structure interprets a pure algebraically closed field iff it has a global stable non-locally modular type. Finally, if time allows, we will discuss reasons to believe in Zilber's Trichotomy in the present context

To understand the definable sets of a theory, it is helpful to have some invariants, i.e. maps from the definable sets to somewhere else which are invariant under definable bijections. Denef and Loeser constructed a very strong such invariant for the theory of pseudo-finite fields (of characteristic zero): to each definable set, they associate a virtual motive. In this way one gets all the known cohomological invariants of varieties (like the Euler characteristic or the Hodge polynomial) for arbitrary definable sets.

I will first explain this, and then present a generalization to other fields, namely to perfect, pseudo-algebraically closed fields with pro-cyclic Galois group. To this end, we will construct maps between the set of definable sets of different such theories. (More precisely:

between the Grothendieck rings of these theories.) Moreover, I will show how, using these maps, one can extract additional information about definable sets of pseudo-finite fields (information which the map of Denef-Loeser loses).

By classical results of Tarski and Artin-Schreier, the elementary theory of the field of real numbers can be axiomatized in purely Galois-theoretic terms by describing the absolute Galois group of the field. Using work of Ax-Kochen/Ershov and a p-adic analogue of the Artin-Schreier theory the same can be proved for the field $\mathbb{Q}_p$ of p-adic numbers and for very few other fields.

Replacing, however, the absolute Galois group of a field K by that of the rational function field $K(t)$ over $K$, one obtains a Galois-theoretic axiomatiozation of almost arbitrary perfect fields. This gives rise to a new approach to longstanding decidability questions for fields like

$F_p((t))$ or $C(t)$.

 

Countable Borel equivalence relations arise naturally as orbit equivalence

relations for countable groups. For each countable Borel equivalence relation E

there is an infinitary sentence such that E is equivalent to the isomorphism

relation on countable models of that sentence. For first order theories the

question is open.

 

  I shall describe some joint work with Vladimir Remeslennikov and Ilia Kazachkov. Partially commutative groups are groups given by a presentation determined by a graph: vertices are generators and edges define commutation relations. Divisbility and orthogonal systems are tools developed to study these groups. Using them we have descriptions of centralisers of subsets, a good understanding of the centraliser lattice in terms of the underlying graph and have made good progress towards classifying the universal theory of these groups as well as their automorphism groups.

 

I'll include a rather short proof of this connectedness in a group of finite

Morley rank, but I'll maybe spend most of the time talking about related matter

without giving proofs.

 

  I will discuss Garside's representation of elements of the braid group in terms of "half- twists" and the corresponding solution to the Conjugacy Problem, originally posed by Artin. If time permits, I will discuss some geometric implications of this result.  

  I will discuss the proof that the exponential algebraic closure operator on the complex exponential field is isomorphic to the pregeometry which controls the "pseudoexponential" field.  

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