scholarly journals New Directions in Descriptive Set Theory

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander S. Kechris

§1. I will start with a quick definition of descriptive set theory: It is the study of the structure of definable sets and functions in separable completely metrizable spaces. Such spaces are usually called Polish spaces. Typical examples are ℝn, ℂn, (separable) Hilbert space and more generally all separable Banach spaces, the Cantor space 2ℕ, the Baire space ℕℕ, the infinite symmetric group S∞, the unitary group (of the Hilbert space), the group of measure preserving transformations of the unit interval, etc.In this theory sets are classified in hierarchies according to the complexity of their definitions and the structure of sets in each level of these hierarchies is systematically analyzed. In the beginning we have the Borel sets in Polish spaces, obtained by starting with the open sets and closing under the operations of complementation and countable unions, and the corresponding Borel hierarchy ( sets). After this come the projective sets, obtained by starting with the Borel sets and closing under the operations of complementation and projection, and the corresponding projective hierarchy ( sets).There are also transfinite extensions of the projective hierarchy and even much more complex definable sets studied in descriptive set theory, but I will restrict myself here to Borel and projective sets, in fact just those at the first level of the projective hierarchy, i.e., the Borel (), analytic () and coanalytic () sets.

1996 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Hjorth

§0. Preface. There has been an expectation that the endgame of the more tenacious problems raised by the Los Angeles ‘cabal’ school of descriptive set theory in the 1970's should ultimately be played out with the use of inner model theory. Questions phrased in the language of descriptive set theory, where both the conclusions and the assumptions are couched in terms that only mention simply definable sets of reals, and which have proved resistant to purely descriptive set theoretic arguments, may at last find their solution through the connection between determinacy and large cardinals.Perhaps the most striking example was given by [24], where the core model theory was used to analyze the structure of HOD and then show that all regular cardinals below ΘL(ℝ) are measurable. John Steel's analysis also settled a number of structural questions regarding HODL(ℝ), such as GCH.Another illustration is provided by [21]. There an application of large cardinals and inner model theory is used to generalize the Harrington-Martin theorem that determinacy implies )determinacy.However, it is harder to find examples of theorems regarding the structure of the projective sets whose only known proof from determinacy assumptions uses the link between determinacy and large cardinals. We may equivalently ask whether there are second order statements of number theory that cannot be proved under PD–the axiom of projective determinacy–without appealing to the large cardinal consequences of the PD, such as the existence of certain kinds of inner models that contain given types of large cardinals.


2002 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. JACKSON ◽  
A. S. KECHRIS ◽  
A. LOUVEAU

This paper develops the foundations of the descriptive set theory of countable Borel equivalence relations on Polish spaces with particular emphasis on the study of hyperfinite, amenable, treeable and universal equivalence relations.


1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itay Neeman

In this paper I shall present a method for proving determinacy from large cardinals which, in many cases, seems to yield optimal results. One of the main applications extends theorems of Martin, Steel and Woodin about determinacy within the projective hierarchy. The method can also be used to give a new proof of Woodin's theorem about determinacy in L(ℝ).The reason we look for optimal determinacy proofs is not only vanity. Such proofs serve to tighten the connection between large cardinals and descriptive set theory, letting us bring our knowledge of one subject to bear on the other, and thus increasing our understanding of both. A classic example of this is the Harrington-Martin proof that -determinacy implies -determinacy. This is an example of a transfer theorem, which assumes a certain determinacy hypothesis and proves a stronger one. While the statement of the theorem makes no mention of large cardinals, its proof goes through 0#, first proving that-determinacy ⇒ 0# exists,and then that0# exists ⇒ -determinacyMore recent examples of the connection between large cardinals and descriptive set theory include Steel's proof thatADL(ℝ) ⇒ HODL(ℝ) ⊨ GCH,see [9], and several results of Woodin about models of AD+, a strengthening of the axiom of determinacy AD which Woodin has introduced. These proofs not only use large cardinals, but also reveal a deep, structural connection between descriptive set theoretic notions and notions related to large cardinals.


1996 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 1287-1304
Author(s):  
Abhijit Dasgupta

The study of infinitary Boolean operations was undertaken by the early researchers of descriptive set theory soon after Suslin's discovery of the important operation. The first attempt to lay down their theory in a systematic fashion was the work of Kantorovich and Livenson [5], where they call these the analytical operations. Earlier, Hausdorff had introduced the δs operations — essentially same as the monotoneω-ary Boolean operations, and Kolmogorov, independently of Hausdorff, had discovered the same objects, which were used in his study of the R operator.The ω-ary Boolean operations turned out to be closely related to most of the classical hierarchies over a fixed Polish space X, including, e. g., the Borel hierarchy (), the difference hierarchies of Hausdorff (Dη()), the C-hierarchy (Cξ) of Selivanovski, and the projective hierarchy (): for each of these hierarchies, every level can be expressed as the range of an ω-ary Boolean operation applied to all possible sequences of open subsets of X. In the terminology of Dougherty [3], every level is “open-ω-Boolean” (if and are collections of subsets of X and I is any set, is said to be -I-Boolean if there exists an I-ary Boolean operation Φ such that = Φ, i. e. is the range of Φ restricted to all possible I-sequences of sets from ). If in addition, the space X has a basis consisting of clopen sets, then the levels of the above hierarchies are also “clopen-ω-Boolean.”


1990 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 604-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boško Živaljević

A remarkable result of Henson and Ross [HR] states that if a function whose graph is Souslin in the product of two hyperfinite sets in an ℵ1 saturated nonstandard universe possesses a certain nice property (capacity) then there exists an internal subfunction of the given one possessing the same property. In particular, they prove that every 1-1 Souslin function preserves any internal counting measure, and show that every two internal sets A and B with ∣A∣/∣B∣ ≈ 1 are Borel bijective. As a supplement to the last-mentioned result of Henson and Ross, Keisler, Kunen, Miller and Leth showed [KKML] that two internal sets A and B are bijective by a countably determined bijection if and only if ∣A∣/∣B∣ is finite and not infinitesimal.In this paper we first show that injective Borel functions map Borel sets into Borel sets, a fact well known in classical descriptive set theory. Then, we extend the result of Henson and Ross concerning the Borel bijectivity of internal sets whose quotient of cardinalities is infinitely closed to 1. We prove that two Borel sets, to which we may assign a counting measure not equal to 0 or ∞, are Borel bijective if and only if they have the same counting measure ≠0, ∞. This, together with the similar characterization for Souslin and measurable countably determined sets, extends the above-mentioned results from [HR] and [KKML].


1982 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 860-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Weitkamp

One concern of descriptive set theory is the classification of definable sets of reals. Taken loosely ‘definable’ can mean anything from projective to formally describable in the language of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (ZF). Recursiveness, in the case of Kleene recursion, can be a particularly informative notion of definability. Sets of integers, for example, are categorized by their positions in the upper semilattice of Turing degrees, and the algorithms for computing their characteristic functions may be taken as their defining presentations. In turn it is interesting to position the common fauna of descriptive set theory in the upper semilattice of Kleene degrees. In so doing not only do we gain a perspective on the complexity of those sets common to the study of descriptive set theory but also a refinement of the theory of analytic sets of reals. The primary concern of this paper is to calculate the relative complexity of several notable coanalytic sets of reals and display (under suitable set theoretic hypothesis) several natural solutions to Post's problem for Kleene recursion.For sets of reals A and B one says A is Kleene recursive in B (written A ≤KB) iff there is a real y so that the characteristic function XA of A is recursive (in the sense of Kleene [1959]) in y, XB and the existential integer quantifier ∃; i.e. there is an integer e so that XA(x) ≃ {e}(x, y, XB, ≃). Intuitively, membership of a real x ϵ ωω in A can be decided from an oracle for x, y and B using a computing machine with a countably infinite memory and an ability to search and manipulate that memory in finite time. A set is Kleene semirecursive in B if it is the domain of an integer valued partial function recursive in y, XB and ≃ for some real y.


2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 482-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Étienne Matheron ◽  
Miroslav Zelený

AbstractThis is a survey paper on the descriptive set theory of hereditary families of closed sets in Polish spaces. Most of the paper is devoted to ideals and σ-ideals of closed or compact sets.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1414-1436 ◽  
Author(s):  
VASSILIOS GREGORIADES ◽  
TAMÁS KISPÉTER ◽  
ARNO PAULY

Computable analysis and effective descriptive set theory are both concerned with complete metric spaces, functions between them and subsets thereof in an effective setting. The precise relationship of the various definitions used in the two disciplines has so far been neglected, a situation this paper is meant to remedy.As the role of the Cauchy completion is relevant for both effective approaches to Polish spaces, we consider the interplay of effectivity and completion in some more detail.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (01) ◽  
pp. 2050021
Author(s):  
Vassilios Gregoriades ◽  
Takayuki Kihara ◽  
Keng Meng Ng

We give a partial answer to an important open problem in descriptive set theory, the Decomposability Conjecture for Borel functions on an analytic subset of a Polish space to a separable metrizable space. Our techniques employ deep results from effective descriptive set theory and recursion theory. In fact it is essential to extend several prominent results in recursion theory (e.g. the Shore–Slaman Join Theorem) to the setting of Polish spaces. As a by-product we give both positive and negative results on the Martin Conjecture on the degree preserving Borel functions between Polish spaces. Additionally we prove results about the transfinite version as well as the computable version of the Decomposability Conjecture.


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