We study and characterize stability, the negation of the independence property (NIP) and the negation of the strict order property (NSOP) in terms of topological and measure theoretical properties of classes of functions. We study a measure theoretic property, Talagrand's stability, and explain the relationship between this property and the NIP in continuous logic. Using a result of Bourgain, Fremlin, and Talagrand, we prove almost definability and Baire 1 definability of coheirs assuming the NIP. We show that a formula has (...) the strict order property if and only if there is a convergent sequence of continuous functions on the space of φ‐types such that its limit is not continuous. We deduce from this a theorem of Shelah and point out the correspondence between this theorem and the Eberlein‐Šmulian theorem. (shrink)

We give a general framework for the treatment of perturbations of types and structures in continuous logic, allowing to specify which parts of the logic may be perturbed. We prove that separable, elementarily equivalent structures which are approximately $aleph_0$-saturated up to arbitrarily small perturbations are isomorphic up to arbitrarily small perturbations. As a corollary, we obtain a Ryll-Nardzewski style characterisation of complete theories all of whose separable models are isomorphic up to arbitrarily small perturbations.

We define the notion has the NIP (not the independence property) in A, where A is a subset of a model, and give some equivalences by translating results from function theory. We also discuss the number of coheirs when A is not necessarily countable, and revisit the notion “ has the NOP (not the order property) in a model M”.

We develop the general theory of topometric spaces, i.e., topological spaces equipped with a well-behaved lower semi-continuous metric. Spaces of global and local types in continuous logic are the motivating examples for the study of such spaces. In particular, we develop Cantor-Bendixson analysis of topometric spaces, which can serve as a basis for the study of local stability (extending the ad hoc development in Ben Yaacov I and Usvyatsov A, Continuous first order logic and local stability. Trans Am Math Soc, (...) in press), as well as of global ${\aleph_0}$ -stability. We conclude with a study of perturbation systems (see Ben Yaacov I, On perturbations of continuous structures, submitted) in the formalism of topometric spaces. In particular, we show how the abstract development applies to ${\aleph_0}$ -stability up to perturbation. (shrink)

We point out how the "Fundamental Theorem of Stability Theory", namely the equivalence between the "non order property" and definability of types, proved by Shelah in the 1970s, is in fact an immediate consequence of Grothendieck's "Criteres de compacite" from 1952. The familiar forms for the defining formulae then follow using Mazur's Lemma regarding weak convergence in Banach spaces.

We study connections between asymptotic structure in a Banach space and model theoretic properties of the space. We show that, in an asymptotic sense, a sequence $$ in a Banach space X generates copies of one of the classical sequence spaces $\ell_p$ or $c_0$ inside X if and only if the quantifier-free types approximated by $$ inside X are quantifier-free definable. More precisely, if $$ is a bounded sequence X such that no normalized sequence of blocks of $$ converges, then (...) the following two conditions are equivalent. There exists a sequence $$ of blocks of $$ such that for every finite dimensional subspace E of X, every quantifier-free type over $E +\overline{\rm span}\{y_n\mid n\in \mathbb{N}\}$ is quantifier-free definable. One of the following two conditions holds: there exists $1\le p 0$ and every finite dimensional subspace E of X there exists a sequence of blocks of $$ which is $$-equivalent over E to the standard unit basis of $\ell_p$; for every $\epsilon>0$ and every finite dimensional subspace E of X there exists a sequence of blocks of $$ which is $$-equivalent over E to the standard unit basis of $c_0$. Several byproducts of the proof are analyzed. (shrink)