Projective curves and weak second-order logic
Abstract
Given an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, we study the incidence relation between points and irreducible projective curves, or more precisely the poset of irreducible proper subvarieties of . Answering a question of Marcus Tressl, we prove that the poset interprets the field, and it is in fact bi-interpretable with the two-sorted structure consisting of the field and a sort for its finite subsets. In this structure one can define the integers, so the theory is undecidable. When is the field of complex numbers we can nevertheless obtain a recursive axiomatization modulo the theory of the integers. We also show that the integers are stably embedded and that the poset of irreducible varieties over the complex numbers is not elementarily equivalent to the one over the algebraic numbers.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.10473,
title = {Projective curves and weak second-order logic},
author = {Alessandro Berarducci and Francesco Gallinaro},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.10473},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Second version, slightly updated introduction