Countably decomposable admissible sets (Q762060): Difference between revisions

This paper is an important contribution to model and definability theory for infinitary languages unifying work on this subject done by various authors. An admissible structure \({\mathcal A}\) is defined to be countably decomposable if its domain A is the union of countably many of its elements and \({\mathcal A}\) satisfies a certain decomposability property DP. The main result of Part I states that for structures with the DP and theories \(T\subseteq {\mathcal L}_ A\) such that T is \({\mathcal A}\)-r.e. and a countable union of members of A, (a) the set of consequences of T in A is \({\mathcal A}\)-r.e., (b) if every \(T_ 0\subseteq T\), \(T_ 0\in A\) has a model then T has a model and (c) the least ordinal not pinned down by T is a member of A. This result includes all the known theorems on \(\Sigma_ 1\)-completeness, \(\Sigma_ 1\)-compactness, non-definability of well-orderings, etc. for various admissible structures. (The proof uses the method of open games.) In Part II, it is shown that under the assumption \(V=L\) the authors' result is the best possible in a certain sense. The notion of \(\Sigma_ 1\)-compactness is strengthened to stable \(\Sigma_ 1\)-compactness, and in Part III it is proved that \(L_{\alpha}\) is stably \(\Sigma_ 1\)-compact if and only if it satisfies the right decomposability conditions. The paper contains an appendix by \textit{L. Harrington}: ''Admissible ordinals are not immortal''.