A survey of homogeneous structures (Q2275386)

This survey article concerns homogeneous first-order structures, that is, countable first-order structures such that every isomorphism between finite substructures extends to a full automorphism. According to a theorem of Fraïssé, homogeneous structures arise by taking a certain limit of classes of finite structures satisfying certain coherence properties: the hereditary property, joint embedding property, and amalgamation property. Particular examples of this theorem are \((\mathbb Q,<)\), which arises as the limit of finite linear orders, and the random graph, which arises as the limit of finite graphs. The article discusses homogeneous structures with an eye towards connections with various areas of mathematics, namely model theory, permutation group theory, combinatorics, descriptive set theory, and topological dynamics. From the model-theoretic perspective, connections with \(\omega\)-categoricity and stability are discussed. The article then proceeds to discuss automorphism groups of homogeneous structures as Polish groups and topics such as free and normal subgroups of the automorphism group. Another interesting topic raised is whether or not a homogeneous structure can be ``reconstructed'' from its automorphism group.