English

Projective curves and weak second-order logic

Logic 2025-10-16 v3

Abstract

Given an algebraically closed field KK of characteristic zero, we study the incidence relation between points and irreducible projective curves, or more precisely the poset of irreducible proper subvarieties of P2(K)\mathbb P^2(K). 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 KK and a sort for its finite subsets. In this structure one can define the integers, so the theory is undecidable. When KK 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.

Keywords

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

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:19:13.091Z