On a question of Abraham Robinson's

In this note we give a negative answer to Abraham Robinson's question whether a finitely generated extension of an undecidable field is always undecidable. We construct 'natural' undecidable fields of transcendence degree 1 over Q all of whose proper finite extensions are decidable. We also construct undecidable algebraic extensions of Q that allow decidable finite extensions

A Diophantine definition of the constants in Q(z)\mathbb{Q}(z)

It is an old problem in the area of Diophantine definability to determine whether $\mathbb{Q}$ is Diophantine in $\mathbb{Q}(z)$. We provide a positive answer conditional on two standard conjectures on elliptic surfaces

First-order definitions in function fields over anti-Mordellic fields

A field k is called anti-Mordellic if every smooth curve over k with a k-point has infinitely many k-points. We prove that for a function field over an anti-Mordellic field, the subfield of constants is defined by a certain universal first order formula. Under additional hypotheses regarding 2-cohomological dimension we prove that algebraic dependence of an n-tuple of elements in such a function field can be described by a first order formula, for each n. We also give a result that lets one distinguish various classes of fields using first order sentences.Comment: 12 page

Diophantine Undecidability of Holomorphy Rings of Function Fields of Characteristic 0

Let $K$ be a one-variable function field over a field of constants of characteristic 0. Let $R$ be a holomorphy subring of $K$, not equal to $K$. We prove the following undecidability results for $R$: If $K$ is recursive, then Hilbert's Tenth Problem is undecidable in $R$. In general, there exist $x_1,...,x_n \in R$ such that there is no algorithm to tell whether a polynomial equation with coefficients in \Q(x_1,...,x_n) has solutions in $R$.Comment: This version contains minor revisions and will appear in Annales de l Institut Fourie

Undecidability in function fields of positive characteristic

We prove that the first-order theory of any function field K of characteristic p>2 is undecidable in the language of rings without parameters. When K is a function field in one variable whose constant field is algebraic over a finite field, we can also prove undecidability in characteristic 2. The proof uses a result by Moret-Bailly about ranks of elliptic curves over function fields.Comment: 12 pages; strengthened main theorem, proved undecidability in the language of rings without parameter

Panorama of p-adic model theory

ABSTRACT. We survey the literature in the model theory of p-adic numbers since\ud Denef’s work on the rationality of Poincaré series. / RÉSUMÉ. Nous donnons un aperçu des développements de la théorie des modèles\ud des nombres p-adiques depuis les travaux de Denef sur la rationalité de séries de Poincaré,\ud par une revue de la bibliographie