From Stability to Simplicity (Q4392803)

This expository paper describes the main results concerning simple theories. Simplicity in model theory was introduced by Shelah in 1980 as a generalization of stability, within his classification program for countable theories. But actually, Shelah's work laid emphasis on stability rather than on simplicity, because it came out that unstable theories has too many models in any uncountable power and so do not admit any classification; on the other hand, stability guarantees a nice independence notion based on forking. But recent work of the authors (in particular the PhD thesis of the first author) clarifies that simplicity is the key property to ensure independence, and stability just provides some better multiplicity and definability results. In the paper under review, the authors explain accurately the connection between simplicity and stability, with particular emphasis on ``amalgamation of types'', they survey the main examples of simple structures and theories (random graphs, pseudofinite fields, the model companion ACFA of the theory of fields equipped with an automorphism, smoothly approximable structures), they describe some recent work on simplicity (including amalgamation of strong types, groups definable in simple structures, a notion of canonical base) and, finally, they discuss a list of open problems.