Related papers: Scott Spectral Gaps are Bounded for Linear Orderin…
Given a Borel class of trees, we show that there is a tree in that class whose Scott sentence is not too much more complicated than the definition of the class. In particular, if the class is definable by a $\Pi_\alpha$ sentence, then there…
Given a countable scattered linear order $L$ of Hausdorff rank $\alpha < \omega_1$ we show that it has a $d\text{-}\Sigma_{2\alpha+1}$ Scott sentence. Ash calculated the back and forth relations for all countable well-orders. From this…
The Scott rank of a countable structure is a measure, coming from the proof of Scott's isomorphism theorem, of the complexity of that structure. The Scott spectrum of a theory (by which we mean a sentence of $\mathcal{L}_{\omega_1 \omega}$)…
We study possible Scott sentence complexities of linear orderings using two approaches. First, we investigate the effect of the Friedman-Stanley embedding on Scott sentence complexity and show that it only preserves…
Scott showed that for every countable structure $\mathcal{A}$, there is a sentence of the infinitary logic $\mathcal{L}_{\omega_1\omega}$, called a Scott sentence for $\mathcal{A}$, whose models are exactly the isomorphic copies of…
For any limit ordinal $\lambda$, we construct a linear order $L_\lambda$ whose Scott complexity is $\Sigma_{\lambda+1}$. This completes the classification of the possible Scott sentence complexities of linear orderings. Previously, there…
Every countable structure has a sentence of the infinitary logic $\mathcal{L}_{\omega_1 \omega}$ which characterizes that structure up to isomorphism among countable structures. Such a sentence is called a Scott sentence, and can be thought…
Given a countable mathematical structure, its Scott sentence is a sentence of the infinitary logic $\mathcal{L}_{\omega_1 \omega}$ that characterizes it among all countable structures. We can measure the complexity of a structure by the…
We calculate the possible Scott ranks of countable models of Peano arithmetic. We show that no non-standard model can have Scott rank less than $\omega$ and that non-standard models of true arithmetic must have Scott rank greater than…
We take two approaches to classifying the complexity of Presburger models: Scott analysis and degree spectra. In particular, we investigate the possible Scott sentence complexities and possible degree spectra of models of Presburger…
We study the complexity of automatic structures via well-established concepts from both logic and model theory, including ordinal heights (of well-founded relations), Scott ranks of structures, and Cantor-Bendixson ranks (of trees). We…
We define and investigate HC-forcing invariant formulas of set theory, whose interpretations in the hereditarily countable sets are well behaved under forcing extensions. This leads naturally to a notion of cardinality ||Phi|| for sentences…
The finite spectrum of a first-order sentence is the set of positive integers that are the sizes of its models. The class of finite spectra is known to be the same as the complexity class NE. We consider the spectra obtained by limiting…
Given a reduced abelian $p$-group, we give an upper bound on the Scott complexity of the group in terms of its Ulm invariants. For limit ordinals, we show that this upper bound is tight. This gives an explicit sequence of such groups with…
We systematically investigate the complexity of model checking the existential positive fragment of first-order logic. In particular, for a set of existential positive sentences, we consider model checking where the sentence is restricted…
We give Scott sentences for certain computable groups, and we use index set calculations as a way of checking that our Scott sentences are as simple as possible. We consider finitely generated groups and torsion-free abelian groups of…
The Hanf number for a set $S$ of sentences in $L_{\omega_1,\omega}$ (or some other logic) is the least infinite cardinal $\kappa$ such that for all $\varphi\in S$, if $\varphi$ has models in all infinite cardinalities less than $\kappa$,…
One measure of the complexity of a first-order theory, and similarly a type, is the complexity of the formulas required to axiomatize it. We say a theory is bounded if there is an axiomatization involving only $\forall_n$-formulas for some…
We give several new examples of computable structures of high Scott rank. For earlier known computable structures of Scott rank $\omega_1^{CK}$, the computable infinitary theory is $\aleph_0$-categorical. Millar and Sacks asked whether this…
The Scott process of a relational structure $M$ is the sequence of sets of formulas given by the Scott analysis of $M$. We present axioms for the class of Scott processes of structures in a relational vocabulary $\tau$, and use them to give…