The surreal numbers as a universal \(H\)-field (Q1737977): Difference between revisions

The main result of the present article concerns Conway's field of surreal numbers \textbf{No} [\textit{J. H. Conway}, On numbers and games. London: Academic Press (1976; Zbl 0334.00004)]: Theorem 3. Every \(H\)-field with small derivation and constant field \(\mathbb{R}\) -- in particular every Hardy field -- can be embedded over \(\mathbb{R}\) as an ordered differential field into the field \textbf{No} equipped with the Berarducci-Mantova derivation. Recall that \(H\)-fields -- abstract ordered differential fields which encompass both Hardy fields and transseries fields -- have been introduced and extensively studied by the first two authors. For a derivation, to be small means that it preserves the corresponding valuation ring, here the one given by the ordering (i.e. the convex hull of \(\mathbb{Q}\)). \textit{A. Berarducci} and \textit{V. Mantova} [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 20, No. 2, 339--390 (2018; Zbl 1477.12006)] proved that \textbf{No} has the structure of a transseries field (in the sense of Schmeling) and subsequently equipped it with a so-called natural surreal derivation. In fact, they showed that, thus, \textbf{No} is a Liouville closed \(H\)-field with small derivation. In the present paper, the authors exploit their substantial work on the model theory of the (ordered valued differential) field of transseries \(\mathbb{T}\) (also called logarithmic-exponential series) [\textit{M. Aschenbrenner} et al., Asymptotic differential algebra and model theory of transseries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (2017; Zbl 1430.12002)]. More precisely, they show that their main result, namely the \emph{Quantifier Elimination result} for the theory of \(\omega\)-free newtonian Liouville closed \(\Lambda\Omega\)-fields, applies. Recall that an \(H\)-field is said to be Liouville closed if it is closed under taking primitives and logarithmic primitives. Moreover, as shown recently by the authors, \(\omega\)-freeness and newtonianity amount to having the so-called Differential Intermediate Value property. \(\Lambda\Omega\)-fields are \(H\)-fields together with certain subsets \(I\), \(\Lambda\) and \(\Omega\) that encode the resolution of fundamental linear first order and second order differential equations. After introducing the necessary definitions and references, the authors establish the main ingredient of their proof: they describe \textbf{No} as a directed union of differential subfields of the form field of generalized power series with exponents in a Hahn group having a smallest archimedean class (i.e. grounded differential subfields). Subsequently, they specialize this decomposition to subfields of \textbf{No} consisting of surreal numbers of length bounded by some cardinal and obtain their Theorem 2: \emph{the field of surreal numbers of countable length \(\mathbf{No}(\omega_1)\) is an elementary submodel of \textbf{No}}. Finally, in section 5, they establish that \(\mathbb{T}\) elementarily embeds as an ordered differential fields into \textbf{No} (Theorem 1), in fact into \(\mathbf{No}(\omega_1)\). They also obtain their Theorem 3 via the QE result.