We study the notion of dp-minimality, beginning by providing several essential facts about dp-minimality, establishing several equivalent definitions for dp-minimality, and comparing dp-minimality to other minimality notions. The majority of the rest of the paper is dedicated to examples. We establish via a simple proof that any weakly o-minimal theory is dp-minimal and then give an example of a weakly o-minimal group not obtained by adding traces of externally definable sets. Next we give an example of a divisible ordered Abelian (...) group which is dp-minimal and not weakly o-minimal. Finally we establish that the field of p -adic numbers is dp-minimal. (shrink)

We show that in a stable first-order theory, the failure of higher dimensional type amalgamation can always be witnessed by algebraic structures that we call n-ary polygroupoids. This generalizes a result of Hrushovski in [16] that failures of 4-amalgamation are witnessed by definable groupoids. The n-ary polygroupoids are definable in a mild expansion of the language.

Dp-minimality is a common generalization of weak minimality and weak o-minimality. If T is a weakly o-minimal theory then it is dp-minimal (Fact 2.2), but there are dp-minimal densely ordered groups that are not weakly o-minimal. We introduce the even more general notion of inp-minimality and prove that in an inp-minimal densely ordered group, every definable unary function is a union of finitely many continuous locally monotonic functions (Theorem 3.2).

Building on Hrushovski's work in [5], we study definable groupoids in stable theories and their relationship with 3-uniqueness and finite internal covers. We introduce the notion of retractability of a definable groupoid (which is slightly stronger than Hrushovski's notion of eliminability), give some criteria for when groupoids are retractable, and show how retractability relates to both 3-uniqueness and the splitness of finite internal covers. One application we give is a new direct method of constructing non-eliminable groupoids from witnesses to the (...) failure of 3-uniqueness. Another application is a proof that any finite internal cover of a stable theory with a centerless liaison groupoid is almost split. (shrink)

We obtain some new results on the topology of unary definable sets in expansions of densely ordered Abelian groups of burden 2. In the special case in which the structure has dp‐rank 2, we show that the existence of an infinite definable discrete set precludes the definability of a set which is dense and codense in an interval, or of a set which is topologically like the Cantor middle‐third set (Theorem 2.9). If it has burden 2 and both an infinite (...) discrete set D and a dense‐codense set X are definable, then translates of X must witness the Independence Property (Theorem 2.26). In the last section, an explicit example of an ordered Abelian group of burden 2 is given in which both an infinite discrete set and a dense‐codense set are definable. (shrink)

We prove that any left-ordered inp-minimal group is abelian and we provide an example of a non-abelian left-ordered group of dp-rank 2. Furthermore, we establish a necessary condition for a group to have finite burden involving normalizers of definable sets, reminiscent of other chain conditions for stable groups.

Generalizing Cooper’s method of quantifier elimination for Presburger arithmetic, we give a new proof that all parametric Presburger families \ [as defined by Woods ] are definable by formulas with polynomially bounded quantifiers in an expanded language with predicates for divisibility by f for every polynomial \. In fact, this quantifier bounding method works more generally in expansions of Presburger arithmetic by multiplication by scalars \: \alpha \in R, t \in X\}\) where R is any ring of functions from X (...) into \. (shrink)