On lovely pairs of geometric structures (Q636329)

In the paper under review, lovely pairs of geometric structures are studied, generalising work on lovely pairs of simple \(\mathrm{SU}\)-rank-1 structures by \textit{E. Vassiliev} [Ann. Pure Appl. Logic 120, No.~1--3, 103--149 (2003; Zbl 1010.03023)] and on dense pairs of o-minimal structures by \textit{L. van den Dries} [Fundam. Math. 157, No. 1, 61--78 (1998; Zbl 0906.03036)]. The authors first show that in the case of geometric structures, the basic model theory of lovely pairs can be worked out as in the \(\mathrm{SU}\)-rank-1 case. To measure the complexity of the geometry given by algebraic closure, the concept of weak local modularity is introduced, and various equivalent characterisations of this notion are given, one of them being ``if \((M,P(M))\) is a lovely pair of models of \(T\), then the \(\mathrm{acl}\)-geometry of \(M\) localised at \(P(M)\) is modular''. In particular, in the o-minimal and \(\mathrm{SU}\)-rank-1 case, weak local modularity is equivalent to linearity. In the second part of the paper, lovely pairs of o-minimal theories \(T\) (expanding DLO) are studied in more detail. A finer analysis of definable sets shows, e.g., that the theory of lovely pairs \(T_P\) eliminates \(\exists^\infty\), generalising results by van den Dries from [loc. cit.]. Finally, a complete classification of the local geometric complexity of a type of an element (in \(T\)) in terms of the thorn rank (in \(T_P\)) is given: if the element is chosen outside \(P(M)\), this rank is equal to 1 in the trivial case, equal to 2 in the linear non-trivial case, and equal to \(\omega\) in the non-linear case. By the trichotomy theorem of \textit{Y. Peterzil} and \textit{S. Starchenko} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 77, No. 3, 481--523 (1998; Zbl 0904.03021)], in the non-linear case a real closed field may be interpreted in \(T\).