arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Andre Nies.
These open problems were presented in the Problem Sessions held during the Tianyuan Workshop on Definability and Computation, June 22-26, 2026. The problems are organized into sections named after their contributors, in the order of their presentations during the workshop. Notes were taken and compiled by Wei Dai, Xiangxi Hu, Yingying Jiang, Ruiwen Li, Tianhao Wang, Xu Wang, and Jie Zou.
We report on some computational experiments related to the trivial units property and unique product property for group rings of torsion-free groups. These properties are related to Kaplansky's unit and zero-divisor conjectures. Our investigations include a classification of certain symmetric non-trivial units in the binary group ring of the Hantzsche-Wendt group; this group was used in Gardam's refutal of Kaplansky's unit conjecture. We also exhibit and investigate a new candidate group that fails the unique units property but may satisfy the trivial unit property. No examples of groups with these properties are known to date.
SJT reducibility between sets $A,B \subseteq \mathbb N$ is defined by $A \le_{SJT} B$ if for each computable function $h$ that is unbounded and nondecreasing, there is an $h$-bounded uniformly $B$-c.e.\ trace $(T_n)_{n \in \mathbb N} $ such that for each $n$, the value $J^A(n)$ of the jump is in $T_n$, if defined. This reducibility is slightly weaker than Turing reducibility. We study SJT reducibility, and as a main result give several characterisations of it on the $K$-trivial sets. This is the first case of extending the three lowness paradigms, weak as an oracle, computed by many, and inert, to the setting of weak reducibilities.
Let $\Aut(G)$ denote the group of (bi-)continuous automorphisms %and $\Out(G)$ the outer automorphism group of a non-Archimedean Polish group~$G$. We show that for any such $G$ with an invariant countable basis of open subgroups, the group $\Aut(G)$ carries a unique Polish topology that makes its natural action on $G$ continuous. Furthermore, for any class of groups allowing a Borel assignment of such bases, there is a functorial duality to a class of countable groupoids with a meet operation, extending work of the authors with Tent (Coarse groups, and the isomorphism problem for oligomorphic groups, Journal of Mathematical Logic, 2021). This provides an alternative description of the topology of $\Aut(G)$. The results hold for instance for the class of locally Roelcke precompact non-Archimedean groups, which contains most classes studied previously. We further provide a model-theoretic proof that the outer automorphism group $\Out(G)$ of an oligomorphic group $G$ is locally compact, a result due to Paolini and the first author (arXiv:2410.02248).
These open problems were presented in the Problem Sessions held during the Tianyuan Workshop on Computability Theory and Descriptive Set Theory, June 16-20, 2025. The problems are organized into sections named after their contributors, in the order of their presentations during the workshop. Notes were taken and compiled by Wei Dai, Feng Li, Ruiwen Li, Ming Xiao, Xu Wang, V\'ictor Hugo Ya\~nez Salazar, and Yang Zheng.
The logic blogs 2023 and 2024 have been joined. The present file contains a lot on particular classes of groups and their relationship with logic, as well as entries on ergodic theory and on foundations. There is also a bit on AI proving at the end.
Let $T$ be a finitely branching rooted tree such that any node has at least two successors. The path space $[T]$ is an ultrametric space: for distinct paths $f,g$ let $d(f,g)= 1/|T_n|$, where $T_n$ denotes the $n$-th level of the tree, and $n$ is largest such that $f(n)= g(n)$. Let $S$ be a subtree of $T$ without leaves that is level-wise uniformly branching, in the sense that the number of successors of a node only depends on its level. We~show that the Hausdorff and lower box dimensions coincide for~$[S]$, and the packing and upper box dimensions also coincide. We give geometric proofs, as well as proofs based on the point-to-set principles. We use the first result to reprove a theorem of Barnea and Shalev on the Hausdorff dimension of closed subgroups of a profinite group $G$, referring only on the geometric structure of the closed subgroup in the canonical path space given by an inverse system for $G$. We obtain an analogous theorem for the packing dimension.
The paper establishes results following two interconnected directions. 1. Let $G$ be a Roelcke precompact closed subgroup of the group $\mathrm{Sym}(\omega)$ of permutations of the natural numbers. Let $\mathrm{Aut}(G)$ denote the group of continuous automorphisms of $G$. Then $\mathrm{Inn}(G)$ is closed in $\mathrm{Aut}(G)$, where $\mathrm{Aut}(G)$ carries the topology of pointwise convergence for its (faithful) action on the cosets of open subgroups. Under the stronger hypothesis that~$G$ is oligomorphic, $\+ N_G/G$ is profinite, where $\+ N_G$ denotes the normaliser of~$G$ in $\mathrm{Sym}(\omega)$, and the topological group $\mathrm{Out}(G)= \mathrm{Aut}(G)/\mathrm{Inn}(G)$ is totally disconnected, locally compact. 2a. We provide a general method to show smoothness of the isomorphism relation for appropriate Borel classes of oligomorphic groups. We apply it to two such classes: the oligomorphic groups with no algebraicity, and the oligomorphic groups with finitely many {essential} subgroups up to conjugacy. 2b. Using this method we also show that if $G$ is in such a Borel class, then $\mathrm{Aut}(G)$ is topologically isomorphic to an oligomorphic group, and $\mathrm{Out}(G)$ is profinite.
Given a computably locally compact Polish space $M$, we show that its 1-point compactification $M^*$ is computably compact. Then, for a computably locally compact group $G$, we show that the Chabauty space $\mathcal S(G)$ of closed subgroups of $G$ has a canonical effectively-closed (i.e., $\Pi^0_1$) presentation as a subspace of the hyperspace $\mathcal K(G^*)$ of closed sets of $G^*$. We construct a computable discrete abelian group $H$ such that $\mathcal S(H)$ is not computably closed in $\mathcal K(H^*)$; in fact, the only computable points of $\mathcal S(H)$ are the trivial group and $H$ itself, while $\mathcal S(H)$ is uncountable. In the case that a computably locally compact group $G$ is also totally disconnected, we provide a further algorithmic characterization of $\mathcal S(G)$ in terms of the countable meet groupoid of $G$ introduced recently by the authors (arXiv: 2204.09878). We apply our results and techniques to show that the index set of the computable locally compact abelian groups that contain a closed subgroup isomorphic to $(\mathbb{R},+)$ is arithmetical.
We consider word automaticity for groups that are nilpotent of class $2$ and have exponent a prime $p$. We show that the infinitely generated free group in this variety is not word automatic. In contrast, the infinite extra-special $p$-group $E_p$ is word automatic, as well as an intermediate group $H_p$ which has an infinite centre. In the last section we introduce a method to show automaticity of central extensions of abelian groups via co-cycles.
The 2022 logic blog has concentrated on the connections of group theory and logic. It discusses Gardam's 2021 refutation of the Higman/ Kaplansky unit conjecture, and its connections to logic and to computation. The rest is about topological groups of various kinds, in particular a computational theory of tdlc groups, and a duality between locally Roelcke precompact groups and certain countable structures called meet groupoids.
Let $S_\infty$ denote the topological group of permutations of the natural numbers. We study the complexity of the isomorphism relation on classes of closed subgroups $S_\infty$ in the setting of Borel reducibility between equivalence relations on Polish spaces. Given a closed subgroup $G$ of $S_\infty$, the coarse group $\mathcal M(G)$ is the structure with domain the cosets of open subgroups of $G$, and a ternary relation $AB \sqsubseteq C$. If $G$ has only countably many open subgroups, then $\mathcal M(G)$ is a countable structure. Coarse groups form our main tool in studying such closed subgroups of $S_\infty$. We axiomatise them abstractly as structures with a ternary relation. For appropriate classes of groups, including the profinite groups, we set up a Stone-type duality between the groups and the corresponding coarse groups. In particular we can recover an isomorphic copy of~$G$ from $\mathcal M(G)$ in a Borel fashion. A closed subgroup $G$ of $S_\infty$ is called oligomorphic if for each $n$, its natural action on $n$-tuples of natural numbers has only finitely many orbits. We use the concept of a coarse group to show that the isomorphism relation for oligomorphic subgroups of $S_\infty$ is Borel reducible to a Borel equivalence relation with all classes countable. We show that the same upper bound applies to the larger class of closed subgroups of $S_\infty$ that are topologically isomorphic to oligomorphic groups.
We study totally disconnected, locally compact (t.d.l.c.) groups from an algorithmic perspective. We give various approaches to defining computable presentations of t.d.l.c.\ groups, and show their equivalence. In the process, we obtain an algorithmic Stone-type duality between t.d.l.c.~groups and certain countable ordered groupoids given by the compact open cosets. We exploit the flexibility given by these different approaches to show that several natural groups, such as $\mathrm{Aut}(T_d)$ and $\mathrm{SL}_n(\mathbb Q_p)$, have computable presentations. We show that many construction leading from t.d.l.c.\ groups to new t.d.l.c.\ groups have algorithmic versions that stay within the class of computably presented t.d.l.c.\ groups. This leads to further examples, such as $\mathrm{PGL}_n(\mathbb Q_p)$. We study whether objects associated with computably t.d.l.c.\ groups are computable: the modular function, the scale function, and Cayley-Abels graphs in the compactly generated case. We give a criterion when computable presentations of t.d.l.c.~groups are unique up to computable isomorphism, and apply it to $\mathbb Q_p$ as an additive group, and the semidirect product $\mathbb Z\ltimes \mathbb Q_p$. We give (joint with Willis) an example of a computably t.d.l.c. group with noncomputable scale function.
The blog has several entries on group theory interacting with computability and wider logic, several open questions, and an entry on undecidability in physics.
Martin-Löf (ML)-reducibility compares $K$-trivial sets by examining the Martin-Löf random sequences that compute them. We show that every $K$-trivial set is computable from a c.e.\ set of the same ML-degree. We investigate the interplay between ML-reducibility and cost functions, which are used to both measure the number of changes in a computable approximation, and the type of null sets used to capture ML-random sequences. We show that for every cost function there is a c.e.\ set ML-above the sets obeying it (called an ML-complete set for the cost function). We characterise the $K$-trivial sets computable from a fragment of the left-c.e.\ random real~$Ω$. This leads to a new characterisation of strong jump-traceability.
We study the algorithmic content of Pontryagin - van Kampen duality. We prove that the dualization is computable in the important cases of compact and locally compact totally disconnected Polish abelian groups. The applications of our main results include solutions to questions of Kihara and Ng about presentations of connected Polish spaces, and an unexpected arithmetical characterisation of direct products of solenoid groups among all Polish groups.
The tower number $\mathfrak t$ and the ultrafilter number $\mathfrak u$ are cardinal characteristics from set theory. They are based on combinatorial properties of classes of subsets of~$\omega$ and the almost inclusion relation $\subseteq^*$ between such subsets. We consider analogs of these cardinal characteristics in computability theory. We show that the mass problem of ultrafilter bases is equivalent to the mass problem of computing a function that dominates all computable functions, and hence, by Martin's characterization, it captures highness. On the other hand, the mass problem for maximal towers is below the mass problem of computing a non-low set. We also show that some, but not all, noncomputable low sets compute maximal towers: Every noncomputable (low) c.e.\ set computes a maximal tower but no 1-generic $\Delta^0_2$-set does so. We finally consider the mass problems of maximal almost disjoint, and of maximal independent families. We show that they are Medvedev equivalent to maximal towers, and to ultrafilter bases, respectively.
A group is $\textit{finitely axiomatizable}$ (FA) in a class $\mathcal{C}$ if it can be determined up to isomorphism within $\mathcal{C}$ by a sentence in the first-order language of group theory. We show that profinite groups of various kinds are FA in the class of profinite groups. Reasons why certain groups cannot be FA are also discussed.