When is an equivalance relation classifiable (Q1126702)

In certain branches of mathematics one can find the idea that a classifiable equivalence relation is one for which we can assign points in some very concrete spaces -- such as \(\mathbb R\), \(\mathbb C\), \(\mathbb T\), \(C([0,1])\) -- in some reasonably nice, preferably Borel, manner as a complete invariant. As classifiability the notion of smoothness is extremely important. Let us recall that an equivalence relation \(E\) on a Polish space \(X\) is smooth if there is a Polish space \(Y\) and a Borel function \(\theta:X\to Y\) such that \(xEy\Leftrightarrow\theta(x)=\theta(y)\) for all \(x,y\in X\). The paper under review contains a collection of examples from various branches of mathematics, which are shown to be very natural classification problems. The author discusses some alternative notions of classifiability and some of the examples serve as a motivation for this line of research.