Powers are easy to avoid

Abstract

Suppose that $\widetilde{\mathbb R}$ is an o-minimal expansion of the real field in which restricted power functions are definable. We show that if $\widehat{\mathbb R}$ is both a reduct (in the sense of definability) of the expansion $\widetilde{\mathbb R}^{\mathbb R}$ of $\widetilde{\mathbb R}$ by all real power functions and an expansion (again in the sense of definability) of $\widetilde{\mathbb R}$, then, provided that $\widetilde{\mathbb R}$ and $\widehat{\mathbb R}$ have the same field of exponents, they define the same sets. This can be viewed as a polynomially bounded version of an old conjecture of van den Dries and Miller.