Ax-Schanuel and strong minimality for the \(j\)-function (Q2003923)

In this paper, the author finds a general form for several previously known results about model-theoretic consequences of results of an Ax-Schanuel type. The author shows that the Ax-Schanuel property of a special form yields strong minimality and geometric triviality (in the sense of model theory). Before explaining the main results of this paper, it is good to consider two special cases first. The differential equation of the exponential function \((y'=y)\) gives a strongly minimal set which is non-orthogonal to the constant field, therefore it is not geometrically trivial. However, the differential equation of the classical \(j\)-function (it involves the Schwarzian operator and it is more difficult to write down) yields a strongly minimal set which is geometrically trivial. Both equations satisfy transcendental statements of an Ax-Schanuel type, where (very roughly speaking) a ``weak'' independence is transformed to the algebraic independence. What is the difference? In the case of the exponential map, the ``weak'' independence is the linear independence. In the case of the \(j\)-function, the ``weak independence'' is given by the ``modular'' (or ``geodesic'') independence, so it has a \emph{binary} nature. Theorem 1.1 of this paper says that a differential equation satisfying a transcendental statement of an Ax-Schanuel type where a ``weak'' independendence is binary always yields a strongly minimal set which is geometrically trivial. The other main results of this paper concern reducts of differentially closed fields (in the case of characteristic 0). Theorem 1.2 says that if we consider an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0 enhanced with a predicate for the solutions of the two-variable differential equation of the j-invariant, then any strongly minimal set in this structure is either geometrically trivial or non-orthogonal to the constant field (which is definable in this structure). Finally, Theorem 1.3 considers just a pair of algebraically closed fields \((K,C)\) of characteristic 0 and the author shows that in such a structure any strongly minimal set is non-orthogonal to \(C\). It should be mentioned that the question the author asks in the beginning of Section 2.4 (about a possibility of a ``weak independence'' in an Ax-Schanuel condition which is given just by the equality) has been answered positively by David Blázquez-Sanz, Guy Casale, James Freitag, and Joel Nagloo in their recent preprint ``A Differential Approach to the Ax-Schanuel. I'' \url{arXiv:2102.03384}]. The example comes from the differential equation of an uniformizer for a Fuchsian group of the first kind coinciding with its commensurator (see Corollary 7.4 and the comment below it in the above preprint).