On von Neumann regular rings with an automorphism (Q2456173)

Difference fields enjoy a nice model theory; for instance, their existentially closed models get an elegant axiomatization through ACFA and provide a typical example of structures with a simple theory. Furthermore every difference ring of sequences \(F^{\mathbb Z}\) for \(F\) a finite field, with the shift automorphism \(\sigma_t ((c_i)_{i \in {\mathbb Z}}) = (c_{i+1})_{i \in {\mathbb Z}}\), has a decidable theory (as can be shown by referring to Büchi's classical decidability theorem for the second-order theory of the naturals with the successor function and the order relation). On this basis the authors consider the decidability question in the general setting of von Neumann regular commutative difference rings and conclude that, in spite of these positive examples, a negative behaviour, and hence undecidability, are prevailing. They first deal with the ring \(C^\omega_{\mathcal F}\) of sequences over an algebraically closed field \(C\) quotiented out by the Fréchet filter \({\mathcal F}\) and endowed with the shift automorphism \(\sigma_t ((c_i)_{i \in \omega}/{\mathcal F}) = (c_{i+1})_{i \in \omega} / {\mathcal F}\). Let us assume that \(C\) is the fixed field of some difference field \((K, \sigma)\) and that the algebraic closure of \(K\) is embedded in \(C^\omega_{\mathcal F}\) with \(\sigma_t\) extending \(\sigma\). Under this hypothesis \(C^\omega_{\mathcal F}\) can be regarded as a right module over the skew polynomial ring \(K [t;\sigma]\) with the commutation rule \(k\cdot t=t\cdot k^\sigma\), \(k \in K\), where the action of \(t\) is defined by \(c\cdot t = \sigma_t (c)\) for every class \(c\) of sequences. An axiomatization of the theory \(T_m\) of this module is provided, and it is proved that \(T_m\) admits positive quantifier elimination, and any difference \(K\)-algebra embeds in a model of \(T_m\). A quantifier elimination result is shown even when \(C^\omega_{\mathcal F}\) is regarded as a two-sorted structure, with a sort for the module in the module language and a sort for the fixed field \(C\) in the field language. Then the authors consider von Neumann regular commutative difference rings \((R,\sigma)\) of characteristic 0 (with \(\sigma\) an automorphism) in the language of rings with an additional 1-ary operation symbol for the automorphism. They establish a partial dichotomy result in this setting. In more detail, they show that exactly one of the following conditions holds: (1) For some natural number \(n\), \(\sigma^n\) fixes the maximal spectrum of \(R\) (and in this case some decidability results for the class of existentially closed rings can be proved). (2) The theory of \((R, \sigma)\) is undecidable. The latter negative result is extended to Bézout commutative rings of characteristic 0 with an infinite fixed subring (under some suitable additional assumptions). Within von Neumann regular commutative difference rings of prime characteristic \(p\), decidability results are obtained when the sizes of the orbits of \(\sigma\) on the maximal spectrum of \(R\) are bounded or, as is said at the beginning at this review, for rings of sequences over a finite field; on the other hand, if \(\sigma\) has orbits of arbitrarily large cardinalities and the fixed subring is an infinite field, then undecidability follows, which leads to the question whether there exists a decidable \((R,\sigma)\) such that \(\sigma\) has an infinite orbit on the maximal spectrum of \(R\) and the fixed subring is infinite. The last part of the paper is devoted to an amalgamation result regarding von Neumann regular commutative \textsl{perfect} difference rings of a given characteristic (0 or prime) (where perfect means that, if the characteristic is a prime \(p\), then the ring is closed under \(p\)-th roots). It is shown that, in the language of rings with the pseudo-inverse and additional symbols for the automorphism, its inverse and (in the prime characteristic case) \(p\)-th roots, the class of these rings has the amalgamation property. Also, the subclass of its existentially closed models is not elementary. Similar results are proved for lattice-ordered commutative difference rings.