Foundational Analysis Of The Solvability Complexity Index: The Weihrauch-SCI Intermediate Hierarchy
Abstract
The Solvability Complexity Index (SCI) provides an extensional limit-height formalism for recovering a target map from finite samples of an evaluation interface by finite-height towers of pointwise limits. We first give a foundational analysis of what this extensional framework does and does not determine. We show that the SCI separation axiom is equivalent to a factorization of through the full evaluation table, and we isolate the minimal logical role of as an information interface. To connect the SCI to Type-2 computability and Weihrauch reducibility, we give an effective enrichment for countable by viewing the evaluation table image as a represented space and factoring as . We then define the Weihrauch-SCI rank of a problem as the least number of iterated limit-oracles needed to compute it in the Weihrauch sense, i.e.\ the least such that , and prove well-posedness and representation invariance of this rank. A central negative result is that the unrestricted raw type-G SCI model (arbitrary post-processing of finite oracle transcripts) is generally not a computability model in the Type-2/Weihrauch sense. To recover a robust bridge, we introduce an intermediate SCI hierarchy by restricting the admissible base-level post-processing to regularity classes (continuous/Borel/Baire) and, optionally, to fixed-query versus adaptive-query policies. We prove that these restrictions form hierarchies, and we establish comparison theorems showing what each restriction logically enforces.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.18955,
title = {Foundational Analysis Of The Solvability Complexity Index: The Weihrauch-SCI Intermediate Hierarchy},
author = {Christopher Sorg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.18955},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Revised version: Koopman example removed due to modularization, corrected smaller logical mistakes