I see model theory as becoming increasingly detached from set theory, and the Tarskian notion of set-theoretic model being no longer central to model theory. In much of modern mathematics, the set-theoretic component is of minor interest, and basic notions are geometric or category-theoretic. In algebraic geometry, schemes or algebraic spaces are the basic notions, with the older “sets of points in affine or projective space” no more than restrictive special cases. The basic notions may be given sheaf-theoretically, or functorially. (...) To understand in depth the historically important affine cases, one does best to work with more general schemes. The resulting relativization and “transfer of structure” is incomparably more flexible and powerful than anything yet known in “set-theoretic model theory”.It seems to me now uncontroversial to see the fine structure of definitions as becoming the central concern of model theory, to the extent that one can easily imagine the subject being called “Definability Theory” in the near future.Tarski's set-theoretic foundational formulations are still favoured by the majority of model-theorists, and evolution towards a more suggestive language has been perplexingly slow. None of the main texts uses in any nontrivial way the language of category theory, far less sheaf theory or topos theory. Given that the most notable interactions of model theory with geometry are in areas of geometry where the language of sheaves is almost indispensable, this is a curious situation, and I find it hard to imagine that it will not change soon, and rapidly. (shrink)

We study model companions of theories extending the graph axioms. First we prove general results concerning the existence of the model companion. Then, by applying these results to the case of graphs, we give a series of companionable and non‐companionable examples.

For every natural numberm, the existentially closed models of the theory of fields withmcommuting derivations can be given a first-order geometric characterization in several ways. In particular, the theory of these differential fields has a model-companion. The axioms are that certain differential varieties determined by certain ordinary varieties are nonempty. There is no restriction on the characteristic of the underlying field.

Fields of characteristic zero with several commuting derivations can be treated as fields equipped with a space of derivations that is closed under the Lie bracket. The existentially closed instances of such structures can then be given a coordinate-free characterization in terms of differential forms. The main tool for doing this is a generalization of the Frobenius Theorem of differential geometry.

If T is a model complete theory with the strict order property, then the theory of the models of T with an automorphism has no model companion.

In this paper, I will give a new characterisation of the spaces of complete theories of pseudofinite fields and of algebraically closed fields with a generic automorphism (ACFA) in terms of the Vietoris topology on absolute Galois groups of prime fields.

In this paper, we introduce an AEC framework for studying fields with commuting automorphisms. Fields with commuting automorphisms are closely related to difference fields. Some authors define a difference ring (or field) as a ring (or field) together with several commuting endomorphisms, while others only study one endomorphism. Z. Chatzidakis and E. Hrushovski have studied in depth the model theory of ACFA, the model companion of difference fields with one automorphism. Our fields with commuting automorphisms generalize this setting. We have (...) several automorphisms and they are required to commute. Hrushovski has proved that in the case of fields with two or more commuting automorphisms, the existentially closed models do not necessarily form a first order model class. In the present paper, we introduce FCA-classes, an AEC framework for studying the existentially closed models of the theory of fields with commuting automorphisms. We prove that an FCA-class has AP and JEP and thus a monster model, that Galois types coincide with existential types in existentially closed models, that the class is homogeneous, and that there is a version of type amalgamation theorem that allows to combine three types under certain conditions. Finally, we use these results to show that our monster model is a simple homogeneous structure in the sense of S. Buechler and O. Lessman (this is a non-elementary analogue for the classification theoretic notion of a simple first order theory). (shrink)

We study algebraic and model-theoretic properties of existentially closed fields with an action of a fixed finite group. Such fields turn out to be pseudo-algebraically closed in a rather strong sense. We place this work in a more general context of the model theory of fields with a group scheme action.

The model companion of the theory of fields with valuation and automorphism exists. A counterexample shows that the theory of models of ACFA equipped with valuation is not this model companion.