The exponential-logarithmic equivalence classes of surreal numbers

In his monograph, H. Gonshor showed that Conway's real closed field of surreal numbers carries an exponential and logarithmic map. Subsequently, L. van den Dries and P. Ehrlich showed that it is a model of the elementary theory of the field of real numbers with the exponential function. In this paper, we give a complete description of the exponential equivalence classes in the spirit of the classical Archimedean and multiplicative equivalence classes. This description is made in terms of a recursive formula as well as a sign sequence formula for the family of representatives of minimal length of these exponential classes

Surreal numbers with derivation, Hardy fields and transseries: a survey

The present survey article has two aims: - To provide an intuitive and accessible introduction to the theory of the field of surreal numbers with exponential and logarithmic functions. - To give an overview of some of the recent achievements. In particular, the field of surreal numbers carries a derivation which turns it into a universal domain for Hardy fields

Mini-Workshop: Surreal Numbers, Surreal Analysis, Hahn Fields and Derivations

New striking analogies between H. Hahn’s fields of generalised series with real coefficients, G. H. Hardy’s field of germs of real valued functions, and J. H. Conway’s field No of surreal numbers, have been lately discovered and exploited. The aim of the workshop was to bring quickly together experts and young researchers, to articulate and investigate current key questions and conjectures regarding these fields, and to explore emerging applications of this recent discovery

Asymptotic analysis of Skolem's exponential functions

Skolem (1956) studied the germs at infinity of the smallest class of real valued functions on the positive real line containing the constant $1$, the identity function $x$, and such that whenever $f$ and $g$ are in the set, $f+g,fg$ and $f^g$ are in the set. This set of germs is well ordered and Skolem conjectured that its order type is epsilon-zero. Van den Dries and Levitz (1984) computed the order type of the fragment below $2^{2^x}$. Here we prove that the set of asymptotic classes within any archimedean class of Skolem functions has order type $\omega$. As a consequence we obtain, for each positive integer $n$, an upper bound for the fragment below $2^{n^x}$. We deduce an epsilon-zero upper bound for the fragment below $2^{x^x}$, improving the previous epsilon-omega bound by Levitz (1978). A novel feature of our approach is the use of Conway's surreal number for asymptotic calculations

Integration on the Surreals

Conway's real closed field No of surreal numbers is a sweeping generalization of the real numbers and the ordinals to which a number of elementary functions such as log and exponentiation have been shown to extend. The problems of identifying significant classes of functions that can be so extended and of defining integration for them have proven to be formidable. In this paper, we address this and related unresolved issues by showing that extensions to No, and thereby integrals, exist for most functions arising in practical applications. In particular, we show they exist for a large subclass of the resurgent functions, a subclass that contains the functions that at infinity are semi-algebraic, semi-analytic, analytic, meromorphic, and Borel summable as well as generic solutions to linear and nonlinear systems of ODEs possibly having irregular singularities. We further establish a sufficient condition for the theory to carry over to ordered exponential subfields of No more generally and illustrate the result with structures familiar from the surreal literature. We work in NBG less the Axiom of Choice (for both sets and proper classes), with the result that the extensions of functions and integrals that concern us here have a "constructive" nature in this sense. In the Appendix it is shown that the existence of such constructive extensions and integrals of substantially more general types of functions (e.g. smooth functions) is obstructed by considerations from the foundations of mathematics.Comment: This paper supersedes the positive portion of O. Costin, P. Ehrlich and H. Friedman, "Integration on the surreals: a conjecture of Conway, Kruskal and Norton", arXiv:1505.02478v3, 24 Aug 2015. A separate paper superseding the negative portion of the earlier arXiv preprint is in preparation by H. Friedman and O. Costi