Arithmetic of Dedekind cuts of ordered abelian groups (Q998307)

This is substantial paper devoted to a systematic study of the algebraic structure of Dedekind cuts in ordered abelian groups. Let \(\check{G}\) be the collection of cuts of such a group \(G\). \(\check{G}\) has a naturally defined ordering and the unary minus operation, it also has two closely related additions \(+\) (left addition) and \(+^R\) (right addition). Each of the additions is definable from each other and the minus operation. Thus, \(\check{G}\) is an \(\mathcal L\)-structure with a signature \((\leq, {\mathbf 0}, +,-)\), where \({\mathbf 0}\) is a constant representing the cut \(((-\infty,0],(0,+\infty))\). An \(\mathcal L\)-structure \(M\) is called a pre-dom if \((M,\leq, {\mathbf 0},+,-)\) is an abelian monoid with neutral element \({\mathbf 0}\), and \(-:M\rightarrow M\) is an anti-automorphism of \(\leq\). For \(x,y\in M\): \(x-y:=-((-x)+y)\), \(\delta:=- {\mathbf 0}\), \(\widehat{x}:=x-x\), and \(|x|:=\max(x,-x)\). The element \(\widehat{x}\) is called the width of \(x\). The concept of width turns out to be of fundamental importance. A pre-dom \(M\) is called a dom (double ordered monoid) if, in addition, \(M\) satisfies: \(\delta\geq {\mathbf 0}\), \(|x|\geq {\mathbf 0}\), and \(x\geq y\) iff \(x-y\geq {\mathbf 0}\). The main theorem says that the universal part of the first-order theory of cuts of ordered abelian groups is axiomatized by the axioms for doms together with the additional axiom \(- {\mathbf 0}< {\mathbf 0}\). It follows that each dom is a substructure of \(\check{G}\) or \(\widetilde{G}\), for some abelian ordered group \(G\), where \(\widetilde{G}\) is the disjoint union of \(G\) and \(\check{G}\) with the operations suitably extended. Other sections of the paper contain various constructions on groups which are useful in the study of doms, results on independence of the dom axioms, and on alternative axiomatisations. The last section is devoted to a generalization of concepts of the valuation theory from ordered abelian groups to doms. The paper concludes with a list of open problems concerning axiomatizability and decidability in doms.