We study model theory of actions of finite groups on substructures of a stable structure. We give an abstract description of existentially closed actions as above in terms of invariants and PAC structures. We show that if the corresponding PAC property is first order, then the theory of such actions has a model companion. Then, we analyze some particular theories of interest (mostly various theories of fields of positive characteristic) and show that in all the cases considered the PAC property is first order.

We show that the theory of Galois actions of a torsion Abelian group A is companionable if and only if, for each prime p, the p-primary part of A is either finite or it coincides with the Prüfer p-group. We also provide a model-theoretic description of the model companions we obtain.

We develop tools for constructing rigid analytic trivializations for Drinfeld modules as infinite products of Frobenius twists of matrices, from which we recover the rigid analytic trivialization given by Pellarin in terms of Anderson generating functions. One advantage is that these infinite products can be obtained from only a finite amount of initial calculation, and consequently we obtain new formulas for periods and quasi-periods, similar to the product expansion of the Carlitz period. We further link to results of Gekeler and Maurischat on the $\infty $ -adic field generated by the period lattice.

Consider an algorithm computing in a differential field with several commuting derivations such that the only operations it performs with the elements of the field are arithmetic operations, differentiation, and zero testing. We show that, if the algorithm is guaranteed to terminate on every input, then there is a computable upper bound for the size of the output of the algorithm in terms of the size of the input. We also generalize this to algorithms working with models of good enough theories (including, for example, difference fields).

We then apply this to differential algebraic geometry to show that there exists a computable uniform upper bound for the number of components of any variety defined by a system of polynomial PDEs. We then use this bound to show the existence of a computable uniform upper bound for the elimination problem in systems of polynomial PDEs with delays.

The following theorem, which includes as very special cases results of Jouanolou and Hrushovski on algebraic $D$-varieties on the one hand, and of Cantat on rational dynamics on the other, is established: Working over a field of characteristic zero, suppose $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{1},\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{2}:Z\rightarrow X$ are dominant rational maps from an (possibly nonreduced) irreducible scheme $Z$ of finite type to an algebraic variety $X$, with the property that there are infinitely many hypersurfaces on $X$ whose scheme-theoretic inverse images under $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{1}$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{2}$ agree. Then there is a nonconstant rational function $g$ on $X$ such that $g\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{1}=g\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{2}$. In the case where $Z$ is also reduced, the scheme-theoretic inverse image can be replaced by the proper transform. A partial result is obtained in positive characteristic. Applications include an extension of the Jouanolou–Hrushovski theorem to generalised algebraic ${\mathcal{D}}$-varieties and of Cantat’s theorem to self-correspondences.

Let P and Q be relatively prime integers greater than 1, and let f be a real valued discretely supported function on a finite dimensional real vector space V. We prove that if $f_{P}(x)=f(Px)-f(x)$ and $f_{Q}(x)=f(Qx)-f(x)$ are both $\Lambda $ -periodic for some lattice $\Lambda \subset V$ , then so is f (up to a modification at $0$ ). This result is used to prove a theorem on the arithmetic of elliptic function fields. In the last section, we discuss the higher rank analogue of this theorem and explain why it fails in rank 2. A full discussion of the higher rank case will appear in a forthcoming work.

We study solutions of difference equations in the rings of sequences and, more generally, solutions of equations with a monoid action in the ring of sequences indexed by the monoid. This framework includes, for example, difference equations on grids (for example, standard difference schemes) and difference equations in functions on words. On the universality side, we prove a version of strong Nullstellensatz for such difference equations under the assumption that the cardinality of the ground field is greater than the cardinality of the monoid and construct an example showing that this assumption cannot be omitted. On the undecidability side, we show that the following problems are undecidable:

A theorem of Ostrowski implies that $\log \left( x \right),\,\log \left( x+1 \right),\,.\,.\,.$ are algebraically independent over $\mathbb{C}\left( x \right)$. More generally, for a linear differential or difference equation, it is an important problem to find all algebraic dependencies among a non-zero solution $y$ and particular transformations of $y$, such as derivatives of $y$ with respect to parameters, shifts of the arguments, rescaling, etc. In this paper, we develop a theory of Tannakian categories with semigroup actions, which will be used to attack such questions in full generality, as each linear differential equation gives rise to a Tannakian category. Deligne studied actions of braid groups on categories and obtained a finite collection of axioms that characterizes such actions to apply them to various geometric constructions. In this paper, we find a finite set of axioms that characterizes actions of semigroups that are finite free products of semigroups of the form ${{\mathbb{N}}^{n}}\,\times \,\mathbb{Z}/{{n}_{1}}\mathbb{Z}\,\times \,.\,.\,.\,\mathbb{Z}/{{n}_{r}}\mathbb{Z}$ on Tannakian categories. This is the class of semigroups that appear in many applications.

We prove field quantifier elimination for valued fields endowed with both an analytic structure that is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-Henselian and an automorphism that is $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}$-Henselian. From this result we can deduce various Ax–Kochen–Eršov type results with respect to completeness and the independence property. The main example we are interested in is the field of Witt vectors on the algebraic closure of $\mathbb{F}_{p}$ endowed with its natural analytic structure and the lifting of the Frobenius. It turns out we can give a (reasonable) axiomatization of its first-order theory and that this theory does not have the independence property.

We extend and apply the Galois theory of linear differential equations equipped with the action of an endomorphism. The Galois groups in this Galois theory are difference algebraic groups, and we use structure theorems for these groups to characterize the possible difference algebraic relations among solutions of linear differential equations. This yields tools to show that certain special functions are difference transcendent. One of our main results is a characterization of discrete integrability of linear differential equations with almost simple usual Galois group, based on a structure theorem for the Zariski dense difference algebraic subgroups of almost simple algebraic groups, which is a schematic version, in characteristic zero, of a result due to Z. Chatzidakis, E. Hrushovski, and Y. Peterzil.

We draw a connection between the model-theoretic notions of modularity (or one-basedness), orthogonality and internality, as applied to difference fields, and questions of descent in in algebraic dynamics. In particular we prove in any dimension a strong dynamical version of Northcott's theorem for function fields, answering a question of Szpiro and Tucker and generalizing a theorem of Baker's for the projective line.

The paper comes in three parts. This first part contains an exposition some of the main results of the model theory of difference fields, and their immediate connection to questions of descent in algebraic dynamics. We present the model-theoretic notion of internality in a context that does not require a universal domain with quantifier-elimination. We also note a version of canonical heights that applies well beyond polarized algebraic dynamics. Part II sharpens the structure theory to arbitrary base fields and constructible maps where in part I we emphasize finite base change and correspondences. Part III will include precise structure theorems related to the Galois theory considered here, and will enable a sharpening of the descent results for non-modular dynamics.

This second part of the paper strengthens the descent theory described in the first part to rational maps and arbitrary base fields. We obtain in particular a decomposition of any difference field extension into a tower of finite, field-internal and one-based difference field extensions. This is needed in order to obtain the ‘dynamical Northcott’ Theorem 1.11 of Part I in sharp form.

We develop the theory of p-adic confluence of q-difference equations. The main result is the fact that, in the p-adic framework, a function is a (Taylor) solution of a differential equation if and only if it is a solution of a q-difference equation. This fact implies an equivalence, called confluence, between the category of differential equations and those of q-difference equations. We develop this theory by introducing a category of sheaves on the disk D−(1,1), for which the stalk at 1 is a differential equation, the stalk at q isa q-difference equation if q is not a root of unity, and the stalk at a root of unity ξ is a mixed object, formed by a differential equation and an action of σξ.

This paper deals with criteria of algebraic independence for the derivatives of solutions of diagonal difference systems. The key idea consists in deriving from the commutativity of the differentiation and difference operators a sequence of iterated extensions of the original difference module, thereby setting the problem in the framework of difference Galois theory and finally reducing it to an exercise in linear algebra on the group of divisors of the involved elliptic curve or torus.

We present the details of a model-theoretic proof of an analogue of the Manin–Mumford conjecture for semiabelian varieties in positive characteristic. As a by-product of the proof we reduce the general positive-characteristic Mordell–Lang problem to a question about purely inseparable points on subvarieties of semiabelian varieties.