A note on nonmultidimensional superstable theories

In this paper we prove that if T is the complete elementary diagram of a countable structure and is a theory as in the title, then Vaught's conjecture holds for T. This result is Theorem 7, below. In the process of establishing this proposition, in Theorem 3 we give a sufficient condition for a superstable theory having only countably many types without parameters to be ω-stable. Familiarity with the rudiments of stability theory, as presented in [3] and [4], will be supposed throughout. The notation used is, by now, standard.We begin by giving a new proof of a lemma due to J. Saffe in [6]. For T stable, recall that the multiplicity of a type p over a set A ⊆ ℳ ⊨ T is the cardinality of the collection of strong types over A extending p.Lemma 1 (Saffe). Let T be stable, A ⊆ ℳ ⊨ T. If t(b̄, A) has infinite multiplicity and t(c̄, A) has finite multiplicity, then t(b̄, A ∪ {c̄}) has infinite multiplicity.Proof. We suppose not and work for a contradiction. Let ‹b̄γ:γ ≤ α›, α ≥ ω, be a list of elements so that t(b̄γ, A) = t(b̄, A) for all γ ≤ α, and st(b̄γ, A) ≠ st(b̄δ, A) for γ ≠ δ. Furthermore, let c̄γ satisfy t(b̄γ∧c̄γ, A) = t(b̄ ∧ c̄, A) for each γ < α.Since t(c̄, A) has finite multiplicity, we may assume for all γ, δ < α. that st(c̄γ, A) = st(c̄δ, A). For each γ < α there is an automorphism fγ of the so-called “monster model” of T (a sufficiently large, saturated model of T) that preserves strong types over A and is such that f(c̄γ) = c̄0.