Categoricity without Power
Abstract
We prove an analogue of Morley's categoricity theorem where cardinality is replaced by the recursion-theoretic notion of arithmetic degree. We say that a complete arithmetically definable theory is -categorical if any two arithmetically extendible models of of arithmetic degree , considered over a common elementary submodel with arithmetical elementary diagram, are isomorphic over that submodel by an isomorphism which preserves the complexity of sets of degree . Here an arithmetically extendible model means an elementary substructure of a model whose elementary diagram is arithmetical. Our main result is: If is -categorical for some nonzero arithmetic degree , then is -categorical for every nonzero arithmetic degree . We also show that, assuming ZFC, -categoricity for some nonzero arithmetic degree is equivalent to uncountable categoricity.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2605.00697,
title = {Categoricity without Power},
author = {Jun Le Goh and Chieu-Minh Tran},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.00697},
year = {2026}
}