English

Categoricity without Power

Logic 2026-05-04 v1

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 TT is DD-categorical if any two arithmetically extendible models of TT of arithmetic degree DD, 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 DD. Here an arithmetically extendible model means an elementary substructure of a model whose elementary diagram is arithmetical. Our main result is: If TT is D1D_1-categorical for some nonzero arithmetic degree D1D_1, then TT is D2D_2-categorical for every nonzero arithmetic degree D2D_2. We also show that, assuming ZFC, DD-categoricity for some nonzero arithmetic degree is equivalent to uncountable categoricity.

Keywords

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}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:45:18.099Z