Strongly dependent ordered abelian groups and Henselian fields (Q2317695)

In [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 284, 171--182 (1984; Zbl 0507.03012)], \textit{Y. Gurevich} and \textit{P. H. Schmitt} proved that every ordered abelian group is dependent (i.e., does not have the independence property). A particularly well-behaved subclass of dependent structures are the strongly dependent structures. In this paper, the authors establish the following algebraic characterization of strongly dependent ordered abelian groups: Theorem. Let \(G\) be an ordered abelian group. The following are equivalent: \begin{itemize} \item[(1)] \(G\) is strongly dependent; \item[(2)] \(\operatorname{dp-rk}(G)<\aleph_0\); \item[(3)] \(G\) has finite spines and \(|\{p\text{ prime}: [G:pG]=\infty\}|<\infty\); \item[(4)] \(G\) is elementarily equivalent to a lexicographic sum \(\bigoplus_{i\in I}G_i\), where \begin{itemize} \item[(a)] for every prime \(p\), \(|\{i\in I: pG\neq G\}|<\infty\) and \item[(b)] \([G_i:pG_i]=\infty\) for only finitely many primes \(p\). \end{itemize} \end{itemize} The proof relies on a general quantifier reduction result [\textit{R. Cluckers} and \textit{I. Halupczok}, Confluentes Math. 3, No. 4, 587--615 (2011; Zbl 1246.03059)] for ordered abelian groups (essentially an updated version of the quantifier reduction of \textit{Y. Gurevich} and \textit{P. H. Schmitt} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 284, 171--182 (1984; Zbl 0507.03012)]) as well as a result from \textit{P. H. Schmitt}'s [Model theory of ordered abelian groups. Heidelberg: Universität Heidelberg (Habil.) (1982)] which implies ordered abelian groups with finite spines are elementarily equivalent to a lexicographic sum of Archimedean ordered abelian groups. As an application of the main result, the authors also demonstrate that strong dependence is preserved when equipping a pure field with a Henselian valuation: Theorem. Let \(K\) be a strongly dependent field and \(v\) any Henselian valuation on \(K\). Then \((K,v)\) is strongly dependent. The value group \(vK\) is stably embedded in \((K,v)\) as a pure ordered abelian group (up to one constant), and the residue field \(Kv\) is stably embedded as a pure field. The main results on ordered abelian groups of this paper were also independently established around the same time in [\textit{A. Dolich} and \textit{J. Goodrick}, Rev. Colomb. Mat. 52, No. 2, 139--159 (2018; Zbl 1437.03125)] and separately in [``Strong ordered abelian groups and \(\operatorname{dp}\)-rank'', Preprint] by \textit{R. Farré}.