Twisted Galois stratification (Q639610)

Galois stratification for formulas in the language of rings, introduced by \textit{M.~Fried} and \textit{G.~Sacerdote} [``Solving diophantine problems over all residue class fields of a number field and all finite fields'', Ann. Math. (2) 104, 203--233 (1976; Zbl 0376.02042)], provides an explicit description of definable sets over finite fields by giving a quantifier elimination procedure for so-called Galois formulas associated with Galois covers of varieties. This strengthened results by \textit{J.~Ax} [``The elementary theory of finite fields'', Ann. Math. (2) 88, 239--271 (1968; Zbl 0195.05701)] on the theory of finite fields. \textit{E.~Hrushovski} [``The elementary theory of the Frobenius automorphisms'', \url{arXiv:math/0406514}] generalized several aspects of Ax' work by developing a theory of difference schemes and studying the elementary theory of Frobenius difference fields, i.e.~algebraically closed fields of positive characteristic together with a power of the Frobenius endomorphism. The present paper develops a theory of Galois stratification for formulas in the language of difference rings. For this, the notions of twisted Galois covers of difference schemes and twisted Galois stratifications are introduced, and a quantifier elimination is proven. This leads to an algebraic description of definable sets over Frobenius difference fields. After publication, a significantly extended version under the same title appeared as [\url{arXiv:1112.0802}].