We give an examination of the automorphism group Aut of a countable recursively saturated model M of PA. The main result is a characterisation of strong elementary initial segments of M as the initial segments consisting of fixed points of automorphisms of M. As a corollary we prove that, for any consistent completion T of PA, there are recursively saturated countable models M1, M2 of T, such that Aut[ncong]Aut, as topological groups with a natural topology. Other results include a classification (...) of the normal subgroups of Aut of the form [lcub]g: g [uharr] A = idA[rcub], for sets A M, and a highly homogeneous representation of Aut as a subgroup of Aut. (shrink)

We develop the method of iterated ultrapower representation to provide a unified and perspicuous approach for building automorphisms of countable recursively saturated models of Peano arithmetic . In particular, we use this method to prove Theorem A below, which confirms a long-standing conjecture of James Schmerl.Theorem AIf is a countable recursively saturated model of in which is a strong cut, then for any there is an automorphism j of such that the fixed point set of j is isomorphic to .We (...) also fine-tune a number of classical results. One of our typical results in this direction is Theorem B below, which generalizes a theorem of Kaye–Kossak–Kotlarski .Theorem BSuppose is a countable recursively saturated model of in which is a strong cut. There is a group embedding from into such that for each that is fixed point free, moves every undefinable element of. (shrink)