Another stable group (Q1923567)

In a recent paper, the author proposed a new uncountably categorical group that has a non-locally modular geometry but does not interpret any field. This provides a further counterexample to Zil'ber's Conjecture saying that every uncountably categorical structure with a non-locally modular geometry allows the interpretation of a field (the conjecture was firstly refused by Hrushovski, who built a strongly minimal relational structure that has a non-locally modular geometry but does not interpret any group). In this paper the author shows that some suitable modifications in his previous construction produce even a new stable unsuperstable group. In more detail, let \({\mathcal G}\) be the category of nilpotent groups \(G\) of class 2 and prime exponent \(p>2\) such that the center \(Z(G)\) of \(G\) equals the derived subgroup \(G'\). Let \(\overline G\) abbreviate the quotient \(G/Z(G)\). So both \(\overline G\) and \(Z(G)\) are vector spaces over the field \(F_p\) with \(p\) elements, and the commutator function \([\cdot,\cdot]\) defines an alternating bilinear map from \(\overline G\times \overline G\) to \(Z(G)\) whose image generates \(Z(G)\). Given the vector space \(\overline G\), there is a free alternating bilinear map \(\wedge\) into the exterior space \(\wedge^2 \overline G\); in particular there exists a linear function \(f\) from \(\wedge^2 \overline G\) to \(Z(G)\) such that \([\cdot, \cdot]\) is just \(f\wedge\). Let \(N(\overline G)\) denote the kernel of \(f\) (so a subspace of \(\wedge^2 \overline G)\). Accordingly consider the category \({\mathcal S}\) of all the pairs \((V,N(V))\) where \(V\) is a vector space over \(F_p\) and \(N(V)\) is a subspace of \(\wedge^2V\). The previous constructions yield a 1-1 correspondence between \({\mathcal G}\) and \({\mathcal S}\) (although some morphisms are lost under passing from \({\mathcal G}\) to \({\mathcal S})\). In the companion paper, the author gave some suitable conditions on the structures of \({\mathcal S}\) and consequently on the corresponding groups in \({\mathcal G}\). They can be expressed by first-order sentences in the language for groups and axiomatize an uncountably categorical group as required. Here the author isolates the following conditions on the structure of \({\mathcal S}\) corresponding to a group \(G\) in \({\mathcal G}\). 1. For all linearly independent \(a_1\), \(a_2\) and \(a_3\) in \(\overline G\), \(N(\langle a_1,a_2,a_3 \rangle) =0\); 2. \(a_1\wedge a_2 \notin N (\overline G)\) for \(a_1,a_2 \in\overline G\) linearly independent. Both of them can be expressed by first-order sentences for groups. The author proves that they axiomatize (together with the other assumptions defining \({\mathcal G})\) a complete theory, which is stable but not superstable. The basic concept in the analysis is the past of a subspace \(A\) of \(\overline G\). This is defined as follows. For \(A\) finite and for a subspace \(B\) of \(A\), \(B\) is part of the past of \(A\) if and only if, for some subspace \(C\) with \(B\subseteq C \subseteq A\) and \(\dim (B)= \dim(C)+1\), \(\dim (N(B))> \dim (N(C))+1\). For \(A\) infinite, the past of \(A\) is just the union of the pasts of finite subspaces of \(A\). It is shown that the past of \(A\) is always included in the algebraic closure of \(A\). Moreover, for \(a_1, \dots, a_n\in G\) linearly independent over \(Z(G)\), the elementary type of \((a_1, \dots, a_n)\) in \(G\) is fully determined by the isomorphism type in \((\overline G,N (\overline G))\) of the past of the subspace generated by their images in \(\overline G\).