Fields and rings with few types

Let R be an associative ring with possible extra structure. R is said to be weakly small if there are countably many 1-types over any finite subset of R. It is locally P if the algebraic closure of any finite subset of R has property P. It is shown here that a field extension of finite degree of a weakly small field either is a finite field or has no Artin-Schreier extension. A weakly small field of characteristic 2 is finite or algebraically closed. Every weakly small division ring of positive characteristic is locally finite dimensional over its centre. The Jacobson radical of a weakly small ring is locally nilpotent. Every weakly small division ring is locally, modulo its Jacobson radical, isomorphic to a product of finitely many matrix rings over division rings

Dimension, matroids, and dense pairs of first-order structures

A structure M is pregeometric if the algebraic closure is a pregeometry in all M' elementarily equivalent to M. We define a generalisation: structures with an existential matroid. The main examples are superstable groups of U-rank a power of omega and d-minimal expansion of fields. Ultraproducts of pregeometric structures expanding a field, while not pregeometric in general, do have an unique existential matroid. Generalising previous results by van den Dries, we define dense elementary pairs of structures expanding a field and with an existential matroid, and we show that the corresponding theories have natural completions, whose models also have a unique existential matroid. We extend the above result to dense tuples of structures.Comment: Version 2.8. 61 page