We work with the structure consisting of all computably enumerable (c.e.) sets ordered by set inclusion. The question we will partially address is which c.e. sets are autormorphic to low (or low2) sets. Using work of R. Miller, we can see that every set with semilow complement is automorphic to a low set. While it remains open whether every set with semilow complement is effectively automorphic to a low set, we show that there are sets without semilow complement that are effectively automorphic to low sets. We also consider other lowness notions such as having a semilow1.5 complement, having the outer splitting property, and having a semilow2 complement. We show that in every nonlow c.e. degree, there are sets with semilow1.5 complements without semilow complements as well as sets with semilow2 complements and the outer splitting property that do not have semilow1.5 complements. We also address the question of which sets are automorphic to low2 sets.
Our domain of discourse is the collection of all c.e. sets under inclusion. This structure is called . By adding intersection, union, the empty set and ω, this structure is a lattice. We should also mention that these binary operations in addition to ∅, ω, and being computable and finite are definable in this structure. Thus, if we have an automorphism of then computable sets must go to computable sets and infinite sets to infinite sets.
If we take the quotient of modulo the ideal of finite sets, we get the lattice of c.e. sets up to finite difference. Soare [13, Chapter XV, Theorem 2.5] showed that if there is an automorphism of taking A to B, then there is one of as well, so we can work in to show that automorphisms of exist.
A c.e. set W is low if and only if its jump, , is Turing equivalent to . As we will discuss below, the low sets are special within . Our goal is to understand as best possible which sets look like and behave like low sets in this structure. That is, when does a set have a low set in its orbit?
The first result in this vein is a result of Soare [12] following [11]. Soare showed that if a c.e. set A is low then its collection of c.e. supersets of A under inclusion is isomorphic to . Formally, is isomorphic to . This suggests that low sets are similar to computable sets. Again, we can work modulo the finite sets, showing that the quotient of modulo the finite sets, called , is isomorphic to .
Actually Soare proved a stronger result. But for that we need a few definitions. First a set X is semilow if and only if . This index set is . If is c.e. and low then this index set is . So if A is low then A has a semilow complement. Now consider an isomorphism Φ between (or ) and . There are functions g and h such that and (or and ). If computable () g and h can be found for Φ, then we call Φ effective (). It is standard to use the terms “effective” or “” to describe isomorphisms between or and , even though the isomorphisms produced may only be effective or on the quotient spaces and . This is the way we will use these terms in this paper.
Soare [12] showed that if A is a c.e. set with semilow complement then is effectively isomorphic to . There have been several improvements on this result. We observe, using work of R. Miller [9], that this can be improved to if A is a c.e. set with semilow complement then A is automorphic to a low set (see Section 2). This means there is a automorphism Φ such that is low. One recent open question raised by Soare (personal communication) is whether the above can be replaced by effective. Another question raised by Soare is to characterize the sets which are effectively automorphic to low sets. It was thought that perhaps a characterization would be all sets which have semilow complements. But, in Section 3, we show that this is not the case, as there are sets without semilow complements that are effectively automorphic to low sets.
Soare’s result about sets with semilow complements was first improved by Maass [8]. Maass showed that for any c.e. set A with semilow1.5 complements that is isomorphic to . A set X is semilow1.5 if and only if the index set . By an index set argument, we know that if A is effectively automorphic to a low set it must have semilow1.5 complement ( if and only if and if is low then the latter is ).
Now Harrington and Soare [5, Section 5] show that there is a property definable in the structure such that if holds then A does not have semilow complement. Moreover they showed that there is a set A with semilow1.5 complement and . Thus we know that not all sets A with semilow1.5 complement can be automorphic to a low set. But can they be automorphic to low2 sets?
We thought we had a positive answer but for nonlow2A seems to be a barrier. does provide a barrier for the question about whether two promptly simple sets with semilow complements are automorphic. This barrier is discussed in Section 5.4 of [5]. (Our situation is similar. The issue seems to be that we cannot get to cover A in real time. Even though we know a state ν is emptied into A, it is emptied slowly through a series of moves into RED and BLUE sets. On the side we have to match this series of BLUE and RED moves and hence we cannot quickly cover A. Another problem here is that depending on e the series of RED and BLUE moves can change. The series of moves does not just depend on ν.)
There was one more extension of Soare’s and Maass’s work. Cholak [1] showed that if A has the outer splitting property and has semilow2 complement then is isomorphic to . A has the outer splitting property if and only if there are computable functions g and h such that for all e, , and if is infinite then is nonempty. Maass [8, Lemma 2.3] shows in a very clever argument that if is semilow1.5 then A has the outer splitting property. X is semilow2 if and only if the index set . At one time we thought we could show that if A has the outer splitting property and has semilow2 complement then A is automorphic to a low2 set. Note that if A is automorphic to a low2 then it has semilow2 complement.
There is also some related recent work of Epstein, [4]. Epstein shows that there is a properly low2 degree such that every c.e. set in that degree is automorphic to a low set. We were wondering if that could be shown more modularly. We wondered if there is some property P such that every set with property P is automorphic to a low set and there is some properly low2 degree such that every set in that degree has property P. One reasonable candidate for P would be having semilow complement. But Soare [13, Chapter IV, Exercise 4.10] shows that every nonlow degree contains a c.e. set whose complement is not semilow (via a nice index set argument). Other later results rule out other possible P’s.
Downey, Jockusch, and Schupp [3, Theorems 4.6 and 4.7] showed that every nonlow degree contains a c.e. A without the outer splitting property (so A’s complement is not semilow1.5). In related results, we show that every nonlow degree contains a c.e. set A whose complement is semilow1.5 but not semilow (see Section 4) and a c.e. set A whose complement is semilow2 but not semilow1.5 and has the outer splitting property (see Section 5). We also provide a nice index set argument that every nonlow2 degree contains a c.e. set A whose complement is not semilow2.
We should mention that it has been long known that if a degree is nonlow2 it must contain a c.e. set which is not automorphic to a low2 set. Lachlan [7] showed, using a true stages construction, that every low2 set has a maximal superset while Shoenfield [10] showed that every nonlow2 degree contains a c.e. set with no maximal superset. These two results have been generalized by Cholak and Harrington [2]. One corollary of the work by Cholak and Harrington is that if a and b are two c.e. degrees and , then a contains a c.e. set not automorphic to anything computable from b. It is open if this can be improved to show that a contains a c.e. set not automorphic to anything whose double jump is computable from .
We mention one more open related question: if A is low2 then is isomorphic to ? We now know that there is a properly low2 set without the outer splitting property. Thus, a positive result here may not use the outer splitting property and is very likely to use the a true stages construction in the style of Lachlan [7].
C.e. sets with semilow complements are automorphic to low
Soare [12] showed that if A is a c.e. set with semilow complement then is effectively isomorphic to . It has been conjectured that in fact any c.e. set A with semilow complement is effectively automorphic to a low set. Here we show that it is possible to modify a proof of R. Miller [9] to show that every c.e. set with semilow complement can be taken by a automorphism to a low set.
For every c.e. set A with semilow complement and every noncomputable c.e. set C, there exists aautomorphism ofmapping A to a set B such that.
R. Miller states this theorem differently, saying that A is a low set instead of a set with semilow complement. However, he mentions that the construction only requires that A have semilow complement.
We modify R. Miller’s proof to get the following theorem.
For every c.e. set A with semilow complement, there exists aautomorphism ofmapping A to a low set B.
Here we discuss the minor modifications to the proof of Theorem 2.1 that result in a proof of Theorem 2.2. Because our modifications are minor and the original proof using the complex Harrington–Soare automorphism construction of [6], we will not reproduce R. Miller’s proof here. Instead we briefly sketch the proof and refer the reader of this section to Theorem 2.1 in [9] for more details.
To prove Theorem 2.1, R. Miller builds an automorphism on a tree, as in Harrington–Soare [6], which takes a given set A to a constructed set B with the desired property that . The primary challenge of the theorem is to allow enough flow of elements into B to match the flow of elements into A while simultaneously restraining elements from B so that B cannot compute C. There are two key components of the construction. The first is a list that keeps track of the states of elements flowing into A so that we can ensure that if infinitely many elements flow into A in a given state, then infinitely many will flow into B in the matching state. The second key component is Step , which enumerates elements into B that are in the appropriate states. Step only allows elements to enter if they are large enough to preserve a given restraint. In our construction, we modify and Step to reflect our new restraint, but little else is changed.
In R. Miller’s construction, Step was the only step that involved putting elements into B. He needed to guarantee the proper flow of elements into B, while preserving restraint that would ensure that B would not be able to compute C. In our modified construction, we just need to preserve a different restraint. In fact, this part of the construction can be done as in Step B of Epstein’s proof in [4] that there is a nonlow degree such that every set in that degree is automorphic to a low set.
In order to make this modification, we first must alter the list . In R. Miller’s construction, pairs are added to the list whenever an element x enters A from the α-state ν. (Note that is the corresponding state on the side of the construction.) In our modification, we will instead add the triple to the list whenever x enters A from the α-state ν. Note that we can identify each triple with a number in ω.
Next, we replace R. Miller’s Step with the following new Step .
(Moving elements into B).
Find the first triple in such that there is a that has never before caused action on this step satisfying all of the following:
α is consistent;
;
; and
for all , .
If is not checked, check , and do not enumerate into B. If has been checked already, enumerate into B and remove from the list . This will leave infinitely many elements in , while still matching the flow into A.
The purpose of this step is essentially the same as in the original construction. It creates a flow of elements into B matching the flow into A, while also respecting the restraint of the negative requirements and ensuring that infinitely many elements remain outside of B.
Most of the lemmas in the proof of Theorem 2.1 in [9] could be kept exactly the same. Lemmas 3.1.3 and 3.3.4 would need only very minor and straightforward changes, reflecting how the new construction still guarantees that is infinite and that Step is able to enumerate an element for every on , with α on the true path, which works essentially the same as before, but with the old restraint replaced by the new one.
The only significant difference in the verification would be to replace Lemmas 3.3.1 and 3.3.2 with the following lemma, which is the same as Lemma 8.17 in [4].
The set B is low.
Suppose there exist infinitely many s such that .
Let be the least s such that for all , has either been removed from the list already or will never be removed from the list (this can happen if it is never added to the list, or if it is added but never matched). Since each can enter only once, then after stage , no will enter B in order to match . Let be some stage with . Then by (), nothing can enter B below the use of this computation. So . So either or . Thus, B is low. □
This completes the modification of R. Miller’s proof to show that every c.e. set with semilow complement is automorphic to a low set. □
It remains open whether every c.e. set with semilow complement is effectively automorphic to a low set. In the next section, we show that there are sets without semilow complement that are effectively automorphic to low sets.
Effectively automorphic to low but not semilow
In Theorem 3.2, we build an effective automorphism of that takes a set A without semilow complement to a low set . To build an effective automorphism, we use Soare’s Effective Extension Theorem.
The main tool in constructing an automorphism of is matching infinite e-states. Suppose we are given listings of all the c.e. sets modulo finite difference, and , and an invertible map Θ of that takes to and takes to . The e-state of an element x tells us which c.e. sets and , or and contain the element x, for all . The map Θ is an automorphism of if there are infinitely many elements in an e-state ν with respect to and if and only if there are infinitely many elements in the corresponding e-state with respect to and .
More formally, we consider two copies of ω, which we will refer to as ω and . We imagine that our automorphism is given by a permutation of ω, which can be represented as a function from ω to . The e-state of an element at stage s is given by the triple , where and . The e-state of an element is determined the same way, except with replacing and replacing . The final e-state of an element is , where and , and similarly for .
To see that Θ is an automorphism, it suffices to show that
The theorem stated below is actually a special case of Soare’s Extension Theorem [11]. The full version is stronger than is needed for this paper. Recall that for an given enumeration of two c.e. sets U and V, , U before V, and , U before V and then V.
Let A andbe infinite c.e. sets, and let,,, andbe computable arrays of c.e. sets. Suppose there is a simultaneous computable enumeration of all of the above such thatfor all n. For each full e-state ν, defineand
is the set of all elements that enter A from e-state ν, and similarly for.
Suppose that the simultaneous enumeration satisfies:
Then there is a computable enumeration of c.e. setsand, whereextendsandextendssuch that,, and
A skeleton of the c.e. sets is a simultaneous computable enumeration of c.e. sets such that every c.e. set is finitely different from some set on the list. Let and be skeletons of the c.e. sets. Thus, if we begin with a partial automorphism of on the complements of A and that takes to and to , then we can extend it to an automorphism of that takes A to , to , and to .
The way we build a partial automorphism on the complements of A and is to match infinite e-states for elements in and . That is, if there are infinitely many elements such that , then there are infinitely many elements in such that , and vice versa.
We call the state ν () a gateway state if () is infinite. In the full version of the Extension Theorem, we do not need an exact matching of gateway states ν and , but only a covering of the states, as described in Soare [11]. Our construction gives an exact matching of gateway states, so we have stated only the special case of the theorem here.
(Cholak/Epstein).
There is a set A that does not have semilow complement, but is effectively automorphic to a low set.
We will construct a c.e. set A such that is not semilow and a c.e. set that is low, such that A and are effectively automorphic to each other. We use Soare’s Effective Extension Theorem.
Our first requirement is the automorphism requirement, which constructs an automorphism taking A to . To do this, we build a simultaneous computable enumeration of c.e. sets , , , and as in the extension theorem, such that and are skeletons. We will ensure that the map taking to and to gives a partial automorphism of on the complements of A and , and that we have equality of gateway states to meet the hypotheses of the Extension Theorem.
Let be a listing of all partial computable functions of two variables. We will use it to list all functions.
To achieve that A does not have semilow complement, we meet the following requirement for all :
To this end, for each we will build sets for each , such that for some k, will be the c.e. set and will be wrong about whether and have nonempty intersection. The index e for may be found computably in k, i, and the number of times n we have started over in building . We call this computable function . By the Recursion Theorem with Parameters (see [13, Chapter II, Theorem 3.5]), we may assume that we know the function g in advance. We can rewrite as:
The number appears as it is the number of i-states. Since each i-state is determined by a subset of as well as a subset of , there are . This will be important for matching entry states, as we will see in the next section.
To achieve that is low, we meet the usual requirement for all :
This guarantees that is low because it makes the jump of limit computable, and thus computable in .
Our construction will take place on two identical pinball machines, M and , see Cholak [1], Soare [13] or Harrington and Soare [6]. Each element of ω will flow through M, and each element of a copy of ω called will flow through . The construction of the pinball machines is extremely simple. They each have a single corridor along which all elements flow. Along the corridor are gates for each . Elements may be held at gates or pass through, according to the construction. In our construction, a closed gate will let nothing through, while an open gate will let all elements through except for those currently designated as witness, as explained later. Throughout the construction, we will match elements in ω to elements in by a matching function with domain ω, where we begin with , the copy of x in . During the construction, elements may be rematched.
Let be a standard enumeration of the c.e. sets. We build two skeletons and as follows: If and x is either at gate for or x has been removed from M, enumerate x into . Similarly, if and is either at gate for or has been removed from , enumerate into . For each e, only finitely many elements never reach gate or leave the machines, so and .
Elements move through M by flowing through the machine, starting at gate , then moving to , and so on. Every element on the machine is at a gate. As x moves, copies its move on . To meet the automorphism requirement, if x is in while at gate for , enumerate into . Similarly, if is in , enumerate x into .
We define for each stage s a restraint function
That is, is the maximum use of any jump computation for .
To meet , we would like to build a c.e. set S such that if guesses that is empty, we put an element not currently in A into S, and if it later guesses that is nonempty, we put that element into A. This is the standard method of constructing a set that does not have semilow complement. It is also frequently used to build a nonlow set, as any set without semilow complement is not low. In order to meet the automorphism requirement, if we put infinitely many elements into A, we must put infinitely elements into from the same i-state. We cannot simply enumerate into whenever we enumerate x into A because we need to ensure that is low. Instead, when we put an element into A, we would like to put a large enough element into that is in the same i-state. The way we will accomplish this is to build several c.e. sets for each i and we will guarantee that one will act as the desired set S. When we want to enumerate an element x from some into A to satisfy a positive requirement, we will simultaneously enumerate a large enough element into , where is in the same i-state as x. Since we have removed x and from the machines, we have left and without reasonable partners, and so we partner them with each other. By this process, whenever we enumerate an element into A from some i-state, we also enumerate an element into from the same i-state, so that we achieve exact matching of entry states, as desired by the Effective Extension Theorem.
For every i, we build for each . We will start with all sets empty. If guesses that they all have empty intersection with , then we will close gate and begin to fill each with a single element, in increasing order of k. We fill with the least element x at gate such that for and is greater than any element in any for .
When a set contains an element not in A, we call that element x and its partner witnesses. Once each contains an element, we reopen the gate to all non-witnesses.
We then wait until guesses that each has nonempty intersection with . Now, there are witnesses and only different i-states.Thus, by the pigeonhole principle, there are two witnesses in the same i-state. Say they are in and in , with . We will enumerate into A and into . These elements are entering in the same state. Once elements enter A or , they are removed from the pinball machine. Their previous matches, and , do not get removed from the pinball machine. Instead, set to be , the element previously known as . We reset all for , removing the name “witness” from any elements in sets that are reset, and starting new empty . Note that has not been reset, but its only element has entered A.
If ever again guesses correctly which sets have nonempty intersection with , then we must repeat the process, with some minor changes. We again close the gate until there is a single element in each that is not also in A. For , we fill as before, with the least element x such that for . For , we wait until has been filled and enumerate into it the least x such that for , where is the number of times has been reset by the action of . The purpose of is so that if acts infinitely often, it will still only injure each finitely often. Once each contains a witness, we reopen to all non-witnesses. We then continue as in the previous paragraph.
In order that respect whenever , if by a new computation, we reset . This causes any witnesses to no longer be witnesses and the set to be built again from an empty set. Note that it does not cause to increase because the resetting was caused by and not by the action of .
The primary reason for using multiple sets instead of a single is that we want to respect more and more computations when we enumerate elements into , which we could not do with only a single that we can only reset finitely often. We will show in the verification that there will be some that is only reset finitely often that we will use to satisfy .
Let each . All sets begin empty and all gates begin open.
Place s on machine M at gate and on machine at gate . Let .
For each x and e, if , and x is either at gate for or x has been removed from the machine, enumerate x into . Similarly, if , and either is at gate for or has been removed from the machine, enumerate into .
In addition, if and is still on the machine, enumerate into . Similarly, if and is still on the machine, enumerate into .
If via a new computation, reset all with by creating a new , increasing by one, and cancelling all witnesses from .
For each i, in increasing order, check if either of the following cases apply.
(Filling ).
At least one has empty intersection with , and either the gate is closed or is equal to the characteristic function of for each k. Close the gate if not already closed. For the least k such that has empty intersection, check if there is an x at gate such that both x and are larger than any current or previous witness at the gate and for . If so, enumerate x into and call it and witnesses. If we enumerated an element into for , open the gate. Continue to Step 5.
(Enumerating into A and ).
All have nonempty intersection with and for all k. Find the least witness such that there is a witness in the same i-state as . Such a pair is guaranteed by the pigeonhole principle. Say the element is in and is in . Note that . Enumerate into A and into and remove both and from the machines. Now and do not have matches on the machine, so set . Reset each for by increasing and starting over with no witnesses. Note that does not get reset and so is not empty, but now has empty intersection with and thus no witnesses.
For each x at an open gate such that x is not a witness and x, , move x and to gate on their respective machines.
Eachis injured finitely often and is satisfied, sois low.
Induct on j. Suppose true for all . Then since is injured finitely often, exists.
If , then the only that can injure the computation by enumerating into for must satisfy . Each of these gets reset finitely often by , for , by the induction hypothesis. By the construction, after an element enters , gets reset and increases by one, as is playing the role of in the construction, where . Thus, after finitely many elements of the form with enter , any future elements must satisfy since for large enough . Since can only be injured finitely often by finitely many , will eventually be satisfied. Thus, the jump of is limit computable, so is low. □
For each gate, infinitely many elements pass through gateto gate.
Induct on i. Suppose true for all . Then infinitely many elements reach gate .
Note that if gate is ever closed, then it will reopen when an element enters for . First we show that it will eventually reopen. As is closed, we know that has empty intersection with , so Case 4A applies. While the gate is closed, Case 4B will not act for this i, so the only way for any to be reset is for to converge via a new computation for . However, no will change for any k while is closed, and Lemma 3.3 tells us that can only converge via a new computation finitely often, so each will only be reset finitely often while remains closed. Furthermore, for , will eventually stop increasing while the gate remains closed. As infinitely many elements arrive at gate , each will eventually receive an element, including , at which point the gate is opened. Therefore, whenever gate is closed, it is eventually reopened.
If the gate is closed only finitely often, then almost all elements that enter also enter . Consider the case that is closed infinitely often. Then it is opened infinitely often, meaning that infinitely often, all have nonempty intersection with . In order for to become closed again, some must have empty intersection with . This can only happen by Step 4 Case 4B or Step 3 applies. In either case, there must be some that gets reset and so its witness is no longer a witness, and on Step 5, it moves to gate if large enough. Thus, infinitely often, an element moves from to . □
For each e,, and thusandare skeletons.
We will prove that . The proof that is similar. Note that , as we never enumerate an element into until after it appears in . Note also that the only elements in that are not enumerated into are those that are permanently held at a gate for . We know from Lemma 3.4 that all gates are open at infinitely many stages, thus no element is held forever at gate unless it is forever labeled a witness or if either x or are less than or equal to i. The latter situation happens for finitely many elements. When any is reset, its witnesses are cancelled, meaning they are no longer considered to be witnesses, so any element that is forever a witness is in the final incarnation of and never enters A. (For the case, these witnesses are of the form for .) There is never more than one element of , for each , so there are finitely many elements that are forever kept at as witnesses. Thus, all other elements of eventually either leave the machine or reach and are enumerated into . □
Requirementis met, sois not semilow.
We must show that . Suppose for a contradiction that it is false. Let i be the least such that gives the characteristic function of the set of e such that has nonempty intersection with .
Note that can only be reset by for , which will only reset finitely often. Let be the greatest k such that is only ever reset finitely often. If , then Step 4 only acts finitely often, meaning that Cases 4A and 4B only apply finitely often, so for almost all s, guesses wrong about whether some has nonempty intersection with . Thus, since we are assuming that is eventually correct, we cannot have that .
Now, let be reset n times in total. Then is 1 if has nonempty intersection with and 0 otherwise. Since , gets reset infinitely often, which means that Step 4 Case 4B acts infinitely often by enumerating an element into A. Thus, infinitely often, gets a new witness in Case 4A and then has that witness enumerated into A in Case 4B. Therefore, there are infinitely many stages when has empty intersection with and Case 4A applies because and there are infinitely many stages when has nonempty intersection with and Case 4B applies because . This contradicts the assumption that exists. Therefore, requirement is met, and since is not limit computable, is not semilow. □
There is an effective automorphism oftaking A to.
Note that the construction provides a simultaneous computable enumeration of the sets and . We guarantee that ν is infinite on the complement of A if and only if is infinite on the complement of by always enumerating elements simultaneously with their partners: x and are in the same e-state, where is the highest gate they reach. Note that there is no possibility for either x or to be rematched infinitely often, as they each only reach finitely many gates and can only be witnesses once at each gate. Also note that if x and are permanently partners and remain forever at gate , then they are in the same -state for all as well, since neither are enumerated into , , or .
Next, we apply the Effective Extension Theorem. It suffices to show that the gateway states for A equal the gateway states for . We only ever enumerate into either A or during Step 4 Case 4B. When we do, we pick witnesses and at Gate that are in the same i-state, which are guaranteed to exist by the pigeonhole principle. Then, we enumerate into A and into . If is in i-state ν, then is in . As above, note that and are also in the same e-state for any e because if , then neither element is in , , , or . Thus, we get that the gateway states equal the gateway states .
By the Effective Extension Theorem, we can extend the partial automorphism on the complements of A and to a total automorphism of taking A to . □
Semilow1.5 not semilow in all nonlow degrees
In Theorem 3.2, we showed that there is set A that does not have semilow complement and is effectively automorphic to a low set. Since A is effectively automorphic to a low set, A has semilow1.5 complement (see the Introduction).
In Theorem 4.1, we show that in every nonlow c.e. degree, there is a set that has semilow1.5 complement but that does not have semilow complement. It remains open whether we can find such sets in every degree that are also effectively automorphic to low sets.
For every nonlow c.e. degreed, there is a c.e. setsuch that A has semilow1.5complement, but does not have semilow complement.
The nonlow c.e. degrees are precisely the degrees of c.e. sets that have semilow1.5complement but not semilow complement.
The corollary follows immediately from the theorem, since every low c.e. set has semilow complement.
Given a nonlow c.e. set D, we will construct an such that is semilow1.5 but not semilow.
To ensure that , we will code D into A. To begin, we construct a computable list of disjoint finite sets , with containing 1 element and each other having elements.
To make not semilow, we proceed similarly as in Theorem 3.2 by meeting the following requirement for each total computable function h on two inputs:
Let be a listing of all partial computable functions on two inputs. Then we must meet for all . We find it easier to refer to h instead of i in this situation. However, when we say , please note that if we are using h to stand in for , then we mean that .
We will try to meet for each α of length i for on our tree of strategies, and for each , so we will label our requirements . To meet , for each e, if has been reset n times, then we build , where r is known in advance by the Recursion Theorem with Parameters. If h guesses that is empty, we add an element, called a witness, to . If h changes its guess, then we want to enumerate the witness into A. When gets reset, its witnesses become inactive. We will meet the requirement for some e and α, so that is nonempty if and only if .
Define
and
Let be defined as and be defined as . Thus is the set of witnesses for nodes of length at most j and is the subset of of witnesses that become inactive.
For A to have semilow1.5 complement, we need to ensure:
To do this, we will show that is infinite if and only if either is infinite or has infinitely many expansionary stages, where a stage is expansionary if is larger than it has been at any previous stage. Since and the set of expansionary stages of are both c.e. sets, this will give us the desired m-reduction.
As mentioned, we will work on a binary tree of strategies. Let α be a length i string on the tree. For each , indicates a guess that has infinitely many expansionary stages and is a guess that it has finitely many. will work to satisfy while assuming that α is correctly guessing the true outcome.
The tree allows us to ensure that if has infinitely many expansionary stages, it is in fact an infinite set. The nodes guessing that there are infinitely many expansionary stages are not allowed to add witnesses when is injured. Instead, they wait until a new expansionary stage is reached. This way, they do not create witnesses that may later enter , only to be forced into A. In addition, nodes guessing that has finitely many expansionary stages are reset each time reaches a new expansionary stage, meaning that any of their current witnesses will never enter A. The combination of these two actions guarantees that if has infinitely many expansionary stages, it has infinitely many elements that never enter A and so it is infinite.
In addition, we need that , which we achieve by a nonlow permitting argument using a technique of Downey, Jockusch, and Schupp [3]. An element only becomes a witness for when . If this computation later converges, such a witness gets enumerated into A. For each α, we build a computable function on two inputs, . If wishes to enumerate a witness into A at stage s, we set . Otherwise . If the computation is injured, then D permits the witness to enter A and so the witness enters A as desired. We will only enumerate witnesses when permitted, so that we will achieve . Thus, we must ensure that D permits frequently enough. Since D is not low and is computable, we know that is not the limit of as s approaches infinity, else would be limit computable and thus D would be low. Therefore, there must be some e such that . When wishes to enumerate an element, , so must diverge. When the current computation is injured by a new element entering D below the use, has permission to enumerate the element into A. Thus, for each α on the true path, there is some e such that D will give permission for to enumerate elements into A as often as needed.
For each k, we define a finite set . Each of these sets will be contained within , where is the nth “row” of ω, the set of all elements of the form using the standard pairing function. We let be the singleton set , and for , we let be the least elements in that have not appeared in any for .
We build an approximation to the true path. We call s an α-stage if α is a substring of . Define , the empty string. Let be the length s string defined by: if has reached a new expansionary stage since the last -stage, and 1 otherwise.
Let and unless otherwise specified. We begin with all allowing addition of new witnesses for every . During the construction, in order to prevent further injury to itself, may disallow some from adding new witnesses. However, we will show that if α is on the true path, the construction ensures that will be allowed to add witnesses infinitely often.
Nodes on the tree may be put in 1–1 correspondence with via a function . Using such a correspondence, let . In Step 3, witnesses come from .
and all sets begin empty for all α, h, and e.
(New expansionary stage).
For each , if grows to a size we have not seen before, i.e. it reaches a new expansionary stage, then do the following for each α of length greater than j: If α guesses that has infinitely many expansionary stages (i.e. ), then now allows addition of new witnesses for , where and α has length i. If α guesses that has finitely many expansionary stages (), we reset for all e, making and declaring and any witnesses for inactive. When reset, we will start a new that begins empty. This will ensure in Lemma 4.3 that nodes guessing incorrectly that has finitely many expansionary stages will not prevent from being infinite by putting too many elements into A.
(Allowing some disallowed witnesses).
We say a node of length j is allowed new witnesses if no disallows from adding witnesses. For each j, N, and β, where β has length j, if currently disallows for N (as defined in Step 5) and if β is allowed new witnesses, then set to allow new witnesses for all α unless Step 2 has acted at some previous stage for these particular j, N, and β. Do this for all possible triples, of which there are only finitely many. This step guarantees that nodes on the true path will be allowed to act in Step 3 infinitely often.
(Adding witnesses).
We act for each α of length at most s such that is allowed to add witnesses by each with such that , and such that either s is an α-stage or α is to the left of and if was the last α-stage, has not been allowed to act at any stage t, . In other words, we act on the approximation to the true path and for any nodes to the left of that have not been allowed to act since before they were last on the approximation to the true path. We act in length-lexicographic order. For each such α, we ask if there is any such that
is inactive,
,
for n the number of times has been reset, and
for all , or and has changed computations at least e times since the last time that added a witness.
If so, then for each such e, let , , be a fresh witness, larger than any previously chosen witness. Enumerate . Declare x to have use s, which we note is larger than the use of . We call both and x active.
(Changing when h changes its guess).
If is active, , and where n is the number of times has been reset, then set . Reset for all by making and all elements in inactive and starting new empty sets , as well as setting . Perform this step for each α and for the least e such that it applies.
(Enumerating witnesses into A and disallowing new witnesses).
If is active with use u and , then put x into and set . Declare and x inactive.
If by such an enumeration, we cause an element of to enter A, then we say does not allow to add witnesses for any α such that . In addition, if the size of has reached the number N, we say that disallows for N.
(Coding D).
If , enumerate one element from into such that for each , if , then the element is not one of the least M elements in .
For each, if the set of expansionary stages ofis infinite, thenis infinite.
Assume the set of expansionary stages of is infinite. We will show that for each M, has at least M elements.
No element in ever enters since new witnesses are chosen to be larger than s, and elements of are smaller than s.
Induct on M. Assume true for .
For , only finitely many elements are ever put into A by . For , can only bring the size of below M if , which happens finitely often. Let be a stage by which the least elements in never enter A and after which no enumerates any of the least M elements of into A. Let be a stage after which Step 2 never acts for (j, , β) for any β of length j. We may assume that at every stage , the Mth least element of is a witness for some , else it would never enter A and we would be guaranteed to have at least M elements in , as desired. Note that the length of α is greater than j since the witnesses are not in .
Let be a stage such the Mth least element in , called , is the least that will ever be in the Mth position of any for . Now, if never enters A by Step 5, we are done, so assume enters A. When enters A, all larger witnesses also enter A, and since the next element in the Mth position is a witness, and it cannot be less than due to minimality, then the next element that enters the Mth position has yet to become a witness. When enters A, does not allow any to add witnesses for any α such that . Step 2 has finished acting for j and , so it will not cause to later allow. The next time allows will be by Step 1, which means has already reached a new expansionary stage. Thus, at the first expansionary stage after enters A, the only witness that could be in the Mth position must be a witness for an α with . At that new expansionary stage, Step 1 inactivates the witnesses for α. Thus the element in the Mth position can never enter A, so has at least M elements. □
We say that α is on the true path if if and only if has infinitely many expansionary stages during the construction.
Assume α is on the true path. Let e be least such that. Thenis reset finitely often (n times) andis nonempty. Thus,is not semilow.
can only be reset in two ways: In Step 1 by growing while α is guessing it has finitely many expansionary stages, which can only happen finitely often for the correct α, and by Step 4 acting for , for . Such a only resets when changes to 1 from 0. This can only happen finitely often since must exist for . Thus, is reset n times for some finite n.
Suppose is nonempty, for .
Then there is some that was enumerated into by Step 3 at stage when and . We want to show that .
Assume equals 1 at some stage , so . Since , and both computations are the same. Since e was chosen so that , we know that must change back to 0, which can only happen in Step 5. However, this cannot happen since and never changes below the use. This gives a contradiction. Thus, if is nonempty, then .
Suppose is empty.
First, note that if has infinitely many witnesses, all of which enter A, then Step 5 acts infinitely often, meaning that changes infinitely often, so diverges, and thus . Since infinitely often, we must have that switches from 0 to 1 infinitely often, as it must be 0 when each witness is appointed and 1 when changes to 1. Thus does not exist.
We may thus assume that after a finite stage, is empty and never gets more elements. We may also assume that , else we have achieved our goal. We now show that will eventually be able to act by adding a new witness in Step 3, contradicting that never gets a new element. We check that all the conditions of Step 3 will eventually be met.
For the first bullet point, we know that will be inactive for almost all s since it is only active when is nonempty. Since is inactive, we know that at almost all stages, as it only can be 1 when is active. Now, we also know that , so . This gives us the second bullet point for almost all s. By the assumption in the previous paragraph, for almost all s, , so we meet the third bullet point.
To check that the fourth bullet point is met, note that for all , either , in which case for almost all s, does not prevent e from acting, or . In the latter case, there are two possibilities. If for almost all s, , then for almost all s, does not prevent e from acting. Otherwise, there are infinitely many stages such that converges, but since , the computation changes infinitely often, so eventually the computation will have changed at least e times. Thus, only prevents e from adding a new witness for finitely many stages.
We have shown that for almost all s, the conditions in all the bullet points are met. We still must show that α is allowed to add a witness at a stage where it is able to act.
For every α on the true path, α is allowed to add witnesses infinitely often.
Induct on the length of α. Assume true for the predecessor of α, . Let have length j. If , then α is allowed to act at every stage that is allowed to act. If , we need to show that infinitely often, when is allowed to act, allows action as well. Suppose not. Then there is some stage such that α is not allowed to act for any . Each time is allowed to act after stage , disallows α from adding new witnesses. This means that Step 2 does not apply for j at any of these stages. We know that by the proof of Lemma 4.3, disallows for each N at most finitely often. Since α is on the true path, has infinitely many expansionary stages, so eventually disallows only for N’s that Step 2 never acted for before stage . Thus eventually Step 2 will apply to j, N, and , so α will be allowed to add new elements, which gives a contradiction, proving the claim. □
Now wait until a stage such that the approximation to the true path never goes to the left of α and the bullet points do not prevent from acting. Let be the next α-stage, and the next stage that α is allowed to add witnesses. Then is either an α-stage or is to the right of α, so we may perform Step 3 for . □
For each partial computable,.
Proving this lemma amounts to showing that there are only finitely many elements in that remain active. For each e and each α, there can only be one active element at a time. Let e be such that is met, as in Lemma 4.4. Either e resets all infinitely often or exists.
If , then . Then changes computations some finite number of times, so by the final bullet of Step 3, only finitely many will ever be able to add witnesses, and will only be able to do so finitely often. If , then , but this is not possible since if .
Thus, for a fixed α and h, either almost all are reset infinitely often or only finitely many ever become active. Since there are only finitely many α of length i, , we conclude that . □
For each,is infinite if and only if either the set of expansionary stages ofis infinite oris infinite. Thus,is semilow1.5.
This lemma gives us that is semilow1.5 because to tell if is infinite, we can ask if the c.e. set that is the union of and the set of expansionary stages of is infinite. This gives us an m-reduction from to .
First, note that , so if is infinite, so is . By Lemma 4.3, we know that if the set of expansionary stages of is infinite, then is infinite.
Assume is infinite. Suppose has finitely many expansionary stages. Then is finite. Thus, . By Lemma 4.5, , so . Thus is infinite. □
.
To determine if , ask if any elements of the set are in A. The only way any of the elements can enter A is if . It is always possible to enumerate one of the elements into A because we must keep out at most elements, and , which is the size of for . For , we do not need to keep out any elements, and is nonempty. □
.
since no element from enters A unless it is in and k enters D.
For , if and only if x becomes a witness and then enters A. The set of witnesses is computable because if x is not a witness by stage x, it will never become a witness. If x is a witness, we ask what its use u is as a witness. Let be such that . Then if and only if . □
Semilow2, O.S.P., not semilow1.5 in all nonlow degrees
As mentioned previously, a set B is semilow2 if . It follows immediately that if B is semilow1.5, then B is semilow2.
A set A has the outer splitting property if there exist total computable functions f and g such that, for each ,
,
is finite, and
if is infinite, then is nonempty.
Maass [8] showed that if a set A has semilow1.5 complement, then A has the outer splitting property. Thus, the class of c.e. sets with semilow1.5 complement is contained in the intersection of the sets with semilow2 complement and the sets with the outer splitting property. We show that in every nonlow c.e. degree, this containment is strict.
For every nonlow c.e. degreed, there is a c.e. setsuch that A has the outer splitting property and semilow2complement, but does not have semilow1.5complement.
The nonlow c.e. degrees are precisely the degrees of c.e. sets that have the outer splitting property and semilow2complement but not semilow1.5complement.
The corollary follows immediately from the theorem, since every low c.e. set has semilow1.5 complement.
Given a nonlow c.e. set D, we will construct an such that is semilow2 but not semilow1.5 and such that A satisfies the outer splitting property.
To ensure that , we will code D into A. To begin, we construct a computable list of disjoint finite sets , such that contains two elements and each other has elements.
To make not semilow1.5, we meet the following requirement for each total computable function h:
Let be a listing of all partial computable functions on two inputs. Then we must meet for all . As in Theorem 4.1, we find it easier to refer to h instead of i in this situation and when we say , we mean that .
We will try to meet for each α of length i for on our tree of strategies and each , so we will label our requirements . To meet , for each e, if has been reset n times, then we build , where r is known in advance by the Recursion Theorem with Parameters. We add elements, called witnesses, to . For some e, we will guarantee that if is infinite, then we dump the witnesses into A, so is finite, and if is finite, gets infinitely many witnesses that never enter A. Thus, will satisfy that is infinite if and only if is finite.
Define
Thus, is the set of all x that are ever witnesses for any for any .
To meet the outer splitting property, we build functions f and g so that for each i, we satisfy requirement :
,
is finite, and
if is infinite, then is nonempty.
For A to have semilow2 complement, we need to ensure .
To achieve this, we will meet for each :
We will also show that is able to determine if is infinite.
We use a binary tree of strategies. Let α be a length i string on the tree. For each , indicates a guess that has infinitely many expansionary stages and is a guess that it has finitely many. will work to satisfy while assuming that α is correctly guessing the true outcome.
The tree serves two purposes. As in Theorem 4.1, it allows us to ensure that if has infinitely many expansionary stages, it is in fact an infinite set. The nodes guessing that there are infinitely many expansionary stages are not allowed to add witnesses when is injured. Instead, they wait until a new expansionary stage is reached. This way, they do not create witnesses that may later enter , only to be forced into A. In addition, nodes guessing that has finitely many expansionary stages are reset each time reaches a new expansionary stage, meaning that any of their current witnesses will never enter A. The combination of these two actions guarantees that if has infinitely many expansionary stages, it has infinitely many elements that never enter A and so it is infinite.
The other purpose of the tree is to allow to compute whether is infinite. In Lemma 5.5, we analyze which elements of stay in forever by examining what happens to witnesses for when α has various relationships to the true path. Since can determine the true path, we can use to find the index for a c.e. set that is finitely different from . Thus can determine whether is infinite.
In addition, we need that , which we achieve by a nonlow permitting argument, as in Theorem 4.1.
We build an approximation to the true path. We call s an α-stage if α is a substring of . Define , the empty string. Let be the length s string defined by: if has reached a new expansionary stage since the last -stage, and 1 otherwise.
Let and unless otherwise specified.
We begin with all allowing addition of new witnesses for every . In Step 5, if is injured, then it will disallow new witnesses for , where α guesses the infinite outcome for . will again allow new witnesses if reaches a new expansionary stage (Step 1). Step 2 also has the ability to make allow again, and serves the purpose of ensuring that if has infinitely many expansionary stages, it allows each to add witnesses infinitely often.
Nodes on the tree may be put in 1–1 correspondence with via a function . Using such a correspondence, let . In Step 3, witnesses come from .
Note that in the following, Steps 1 and 2 are identical to those in Theorem 4.1.
(New expansionary stage).
For each , if grows to a size we have not seen before, i.e. it reaches a new expansionary stage, then do the following for each α of length greater than j: If α guesses that has infinitely many expansionary stages (i.e. ), then now allows addition of new witnesses for . If α guesses that has finitely many expansionary stages (), we reset for all e, making and declaring and any witnesses for inactive. When reset, we will start a new that begins empty.
(Allowing some disallowed witnesses).
We say a node of length j is allowed new witnesses if no disallows from adding witnesses. For each j, N, and β, where β has length j, if currently disallows for N (as defined in Step 5) and if β is allowed new witnesses, then set to allow new witnesses for all α unless Step 2 has acted at some previous stage for these particular j, N, and β. Do this for all possible triples, of which there are only finitely many. This step guarantees that nodes on the true path will be allowed to act in Step 3 infinitely often.
(Adding witnesses).
We act for each α of length at most s such that is allowed to add witnesses by each with such that , and such that either s is an α-stage or α is to the left of and if was the last α-stage, has not been allowed to act at any stage t, . In other words, we act on the approximation to the true path and for any nodes to the left of that have not been allowed to act since before they were last on the approximation to the true path. We act in length-lexicographic order. For each such α, we ask if there is any such that
,
, and
for all , or and has changed computations at least e times since the last time that added a witness.
If so, then for each such e, let , , be a fresh witness, larger than any previously chosen witness. Enumerate . Declare x to have use , which is defined to be the use of . We call the witness x active.
(Changing when grows).
Suppose , contains at least one witness, and where n is the number of times has been reset. Then set and reset for all by starting new empty sets , as well as setting and declaring any witnesses for inactive. Perform this step for each α and for the least e such that it applies.
(Enumerating witnesses into A and disallowing new witnesses).
If is active with use u and , then put x into and set .
If by such an enumeration, we cause an element of to enter A, then we say does not allow to add witnesses for any α such that . In addition, if the size of has become N, we say that disallows for N.
(Outer splitting property).
Let . For each such that x is not yet in or , do the first of the following that applies:
If and , put x in . Reset all for .
If there is an and any α such that x is an inactive witness for , and does not already contain an inactive witness, then put x into .
If contains no inactive witness and there is an such that and is empty, then put x into .
If none of the above applies, put x into .
(Coding D).
If , enumerate one element from into such that it obeys the following: for each and , the element is not one of the least M elements in , and for each , the element is not one of the least elements in .
For each,is infinite if and only if eitheris infinite orhas infinitely many expansionary stages.
Note that the proof of this lemma is a very slight variation on the proof of Lemma 4.3.
If is infinite then either is infinite or is infinite, in which case it has infinitely many expansionary stages.
If is infinite, then is infinite. Suppose has infinitely many expansionary stages. We will show that for each M, has at least M elements.
Induct on M. Assume true for .
No element in ever enters since new witnesses are chosen to be larger than s, and elements of are smaller than s.
For , only finitely many elements are ever put into A by . For , can only bring the size of below M if , which happens finitely often. Let be a stage by which the least elements in never enter A and after which no enumerates any of the least M elements of into A. Let be a stage after which Step 2 never acts for () for any β of length j. We may assume that at every stage , the Mth least element of is a witness for some , else it would never enter A and we would be guaranteed to have at least M elements in , as desired. Note that the length of α is greater than j since the witnesses are not in .
Let be a stage such the Mth least element in , called , has the least use of any that will ever be in the Mth position of any for . Now, if never enters A by Step 5, we are done, so assume enters A. When enters A, all witnesses with equal or larger uses also enter A, and since the next element in the Mth position is a witness, and it cannot have smaller use than due to minimality, then the next element that enters the Mth position has yet to become a witness. When enters A, does not allow any to add witnesses for any α such that . Step 2 has finished acting for j and , so it will not cause to later allow. The next time allows will be by Step 1, which means has already reached a new expansionary stage. Thus, at the first expansionary stage after enters A, the only witness that could be in the Mth position must be a witness for an α with . At that new expansionary stage, Step 1 inactivates the witnesses for α. Thus the element in the Mth position can never enter A, so has at least M elements. □
We say that α is on the true path if if and only if has infinitely many expansionary stages during the construction.
Let α be on the true path. Let e be the least such that eitherdoes not exist or it exists and. Thenis reset finitely often (n times) andis infinite if and only ifis finite. Thusis not semilow1.5.
Since α is on the true path, is reset only finitely often by , . can only be reset by in Step 6 when , and each of these can only reset it finitely often, so it only gets reset finitely often by .
can only be reset by for when grows, where is the number of times has been reset. When it grows, we set from , so if resets infinitely often, then does not exist, contradicting the assumption that it exists and equals . Thus is reset finitely often.
is infinite.
diverges. Thus, . If is finite, we are done, since . If is infinite, then converges infinitely often. Any elements that we add when converges will be enumerated into A when diverges for because the use of each witness equals the use of the computation . Thus is finite.
converges. Thus, . If is infinite, then cannot equal 0 because there will be infinitely many stages where Step 4 applies, setting to 1. Thus, if , then does not exist, but this is also impossible since the only time that changes from 1 to 0 is when diverges or changes its computation, meaning that must diverge.
Thus, if is infinite, then is finite.
is finite. Note that must exist because it can change to 1 only finitely often since is finite.
diverges. Thus, . Note that at the final stage s when changes from 0 to 1, contains an active witness not in A. This means that , else the active witness would have entered A. Since , then the computation must eventually be injured, at which point will become 0, contradicting that the limit is 1.
converges. Thus, . Because converges, if infinitely many elements enter , then infinitely many elements stay in , since they only enter if has its computation injured. Thus it suffices to show that infinitely elements enter . To do so, we will show that at infinitely many stages, Step 3 acts. We already know that for almost all s, and , so the first two bullet points of Step 3 are met for almost all s.
To check that the third bullet point is met, note that for each , either , in which case for almost all s, does not prevent e from acting, or . In the latter case, there are two possibilities. If for almost all s, , then for almost all s, does not prevent e from meeting the third bullet point. Otherwise, there are infinitely many stages such that , but since , the computation changes infinitely often, so eventually the computation will have changed at least e times. Thus, only prevents e from adding a new witness for finitely many stages.
Now that we have seen that for almost all s, the three bullet points are met, we must still show that α is allowed to add a witness at a stage where it is able to act.
For every α on the true path, α is allowed to add witnesses infinitely often.
For the proof of the claim, see Lemma 4.4, replacing the reference to Lemma 4.3 with Lemma 5.3.
Now wait until a stage such that the approximation to the true path never goes to the left of α and the bullet points do not prevent from acting after stage . Let be any α-stage, and the next stage that α is allowed to add witnesses. Then is either an α-stage or is to the right of α, so we may perform Step 3 for . Thus, there are infinitely many stages at which we will add witnesses to , so it will be infinite and have infinite intersection with . □
can compute.
By Lemma 5.3, it suffices to show that can compute , since can determine if the set of expansionary stages of is infinite since the set of expansionary stages is a c.e. set.
We will show that is a c.e. set and that there is a -computable function such that , so is infinite if and only if is infinite, which is -computable.
Note that can determine the true path on the tree of strategies. Consider each that makes up . If α is to the right of the true path, then gets reset infinitely often, so the set of elements in is the c.e. set given by the set of all x in at a stage when is reset. Put these into .
If α is to the left of the true path, there are only finitely many α-stages. Step 3 is either allowed to add witnesses at the final α-stage or at one later stage. Thus only gets finitely many elements, so it may be ignored.
For each α on the true path of length , use to find the least e such that . For , note that if there are infinitely many witnesses for , then must be 0 infinitely often, so its limit must be 0. We also have that must converge infinitely often for us to add infinitely many witnesses, so it must also diverge infinitely often so that . Thus, once stops being reset, which we know must happen by the proof of Lemma 5.4, all new witnesses eventually enter A. Thus, only contributes finitely much to and can be ignored.
Now consider . If resets infinitely often, then the contribution of to is given by the set of elements that are witnesses at stages when it gets reset, and these can be added to . Suppose resets only finitely often. First, consider the case where . Then by the choice of e. However, if , then when gets defined as 1, it contains an active witness, and the witness cannot enter A else it would reset , so . This is a contradiction, so . Since resets only finitely often, we must have that . Thus, , so changes computations some finite number of times. By the final bullet of Step 3, only finitely many will ever be able to add witnesses, and will only be able to do so finitely often. Thus after a finite stage, no can add any witnesses, for , so these collectively contribute only finitely many elements to and can be ignored.
For e itself, is infinite if and only if is finite, for n the number of times is reset, by Lemma 5.4. We can ask to determine this. If we know that is finite, we can ignore it. If we know it is infinite, then is finite, so , and thus and so almost all elements that we put into remain in , so we can put them all into . □
The following hold for all:
,
, and
infiniteis nonempty.
By construction, we put every element of into either or , but not both, so part (a) holds.
Proof of (b): We may add elements to by Step 6(a), (b), and (c). The set must be finite because only Step 6(a) can add elements to it and only when its size is less than , so at most elements will stay in forever.
To see that is finite, we look at Step 6(b) and (c). If Step 6(b) adds an inactive witness to , it will never be able to do so again, as inactive witnesses remain inactive witnesses forever for the remainder of the construction. Step 6(c) allows us to take an element from only when there is not already an element in , for . Thus, even if we put infinitely many elements in by Step 6(c), only finitely many remain forever.
Proof of (c): Suppose is infinite. Suppose there are eventually elements that enter by Step 6(a). When we add elements by Step 6(a), they are taken from , which means that they cannot be put into A by action of for any . When we put the elements into , we also reset for each , so they cannot enter A from action of these requirements, either. They can only be enumerated into A by , for , which each only act once. Thus, at least one element will remain in . If there are not eventually elements that enter by Step 6(a), then must be finite, so , and so is infinite. If Step 6(b) ever acts by enumerating into , then contains an inactive witness, which will never enter A. Otherwise, we know there is some such that there are infinitely many witnesses for contained in , by the pigeonhole principle. Since Step 6(b) never acts, all of the witnesses are active when they enter . Suppose is empty. Then every time Step 6(c) acts by adding an active witness to , that element later enters A when the current computation changes because D changes below the use. For each x that is an active witness for when it enters , it either enters , in which case it later enters A, or there is already an active witness y for in when it enters . In that case, we know that y goes into A, at which stage x must go into A as well because they have the same use. Thus, if is empty, then is finite, proving part (c). □
.
To determine if , ask if A contains any elements of . is nonempty if and only if . This is because only can enumerate elements of into A, and is always able to act because has more elements in it than are prohibited. To see that has more elements than are prohibited, recall that for each and , we prohibit the least M elements in , and for each , we prohibit the least elements in . For , one element is prohibited and has two elements. For , the first clause prohibits less than elements because . The second clause prohibits less than elements because . Thus fewer than elements are prohibited and contains elements. □
.
since no element from enters A unless it is in and k enters D.
For , if and only if x becomes a witness and then enters A. The set of witnesses is computable because if x is not a witness by stage x, it will never become a witness. If x is a witness, we ask what its use u is as a witness. Let be such that . Then if and only if . □
This concludes the proof of the theorem. □
Nonlow2 degrees and sets whose complement is not semilow2
In this section we will provide an index set argument that every nonlow2 c.e. degree contains a c.e. set whose complement is not semilow2. Soare [13, Chapter IV, Exercise 4.10] shows via an index set argument that every nonlow c.e. degree contains a c.e. set whose complement is not semilow.
Recall that is the set of indices for infinite c.e. sets. is complete. and . Let . Recall is semilow1.5 if and is semilow2 if .
For every c.e. set B, there is a c.e.such that.
If B is nonlow2, then there exists a c.e.such thatis not semilow2(and not semilow1.5).
Let B be nonlow2. Then there exists a c.e. such that , so is not semilow2 (and not semilow1.5). □
Let be a listing of all Turing functionals. Let be a computable enumeration of B. We may assume that if , then there is a stage between s and t such that the computation diverges. We may also assume that at each stage s, there is at most one pair such that and . The use function of the computation is denoted and is the maximal element of seen in the computation.
If , enumerate all marked elements into whose markers have uses . Whenever an element is enumerated into A, its marker is removed.
If , and there is no current marker , then choose the least element , , without a marker and place marker on it. The use of this marker is .
Let be the least such that there is no current marker . Place on the least , , without any marker, and let b be the use of this marker.
.
To determine if , first run the construction until stage y to see if y ever has a marker. If not, then . If so, then if the marker was added at stage s and the use of the marker on y is u, ask if B ever changes at or below u after stage s. If so, then . Otherwise . □
.
Recall that the use of any marker is b. Thus, once has settled up through b, no current or future marker will ever enter A. To determine if , run the construction until either is placed on an element in , in which case , or b enters . If , then eventually a marker will appear in Step 3 on an element in , as desired. □
Let.is infinite if and only ifis infinite.
If is infinite, then there exist infinitely many x such that . For such x, for almost all s, and never later changes at or below the use . For each such x, will be undefined before the final computation converges, because any previous computation would have been injured below the use, causing the marker to be removed. When the final computation appears, the marker will be placed by Step 2 on an element in , and this element will never enter A since nothing enters B at or below the use. Thus for each of these infinitely many x values, the final resting place of is in , and thus is infinite.
If is finite, then for almost all x, diverges, which means that for almost all x, every computation that converges is injured below the use. Thus, for almost all x, whenever is placed on an element, that element later enters A. There are only finitely many x values where is ever on an element that remains outside of A, and once a marker is placed on an element outside A, it remains there forever, and there is always only one current . Thus, only finitely many elements of are in . □
Footnotes
Acknowledgement
The first author was partially supported by Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant for Mathematicians 315283.
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