Anti-classification results for groups acting freely on the line

Filippo Calderoni, David Marker, Luca Motto Ros, Assaf Shani

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We explore countable ordered Archimedean groups from the point of view of descriptive set theory. We introduce the space of Archimedean left-orderings Ar(G) for a given countable group G, and prove that the equivalence relation induced by the natural action of GL2(Q) on Ar(Q2) is not concretely classifiable. Then we analyze the isomorphism relation for countable ordered Archimedean groups, and pin its complexity in terms of the hierarchy of Hjorth, Kechris and Louveau [29]. In particular, we show that its potential class is not Π30. This topological constraint prevents classifying Archimedean groups using countable subsets of reals. We obtain analogous results for the bi-embeddability relation, and we consider similar problems for circularly ordered groups, and o-minimal structures such as ordered divisible Abelian groups, and real closed fields. Our proofs combine classical results on Archimedean groups, the theory of Borel equivalence relations, and analyzing definable sets in the basic Cohen model and other models of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory without choice.

Original languageAmerican English
Article number108938
JournalAdvances in Mathematics
Volume418
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2023
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Mathematics

Keywords

  • Archimedean ordered groups
  • Borel equivalence relations
  • Borel reducibility
  • Choiceless models
  • Circularly ordered groups
  • o-minimality

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