A coarse description of a set A ⊆ ω is a set D ⊆ ω such that the symmetric difference of A and D has asymptotic density 0. We study the extent to which noncomputable information can be effectively recovered from all coarse descriptions of a given set A, especially when A is effectively random in some sense. We show that if A is 1-random and B is computable from every coarse description D of A, then B is K-trivial, which implies that if A is in fact weakly 2-random then B is computable. Our main tool is a kind of compactness theorem for cone-avoiding descriptions, which also allows us to prove the same result for 1-genericity in place of weak 2-randomness. In the other direction, we show that if $A \le _{{\rm{T}}} \emptyset {\rm{'}}$ is a 1-random set, then there is a noncomputable c.e. set computable from every coarse description of A, but that not all K-trivial sets are computable from every coarse description of some 1-random set. We study both uniform and nonuniform notions of coarse reducibility. A set Y is uniformly coarsely reducible to X if there is a Turing functional Φ such that if D is a coarse description of X, then ΦD is a coarse description of Y. A set B is nonuniformly coarsely reducible to A if every coarse description of A computes a coarse description of B. We show that a certain natural embedding of the Turing degrees into the coarse degrees (both uniform and nonuniform) is not surjective. We also show that if two sets are mutually weakly 3-random, then their coarse degrees form a minimal pair, in both the uniform and nonuniform cases, but that the same is not true of every pair of relatively 2-random sets, at least in the nonuniform coarse degrees.

We prove that every diagonally noncomputable function computes a set A which is bi-immune, meaning that neither A nor its complement has an infinite computably enumerable subset.

It was shown by Cholak, Jockusch, and Slaman that every computable 2-coloring of pairs admits an infinite low2 homogeneous set H. We answer a question of the same authors by showing that H may be chosen to satisfy in addition C ≰rH, where C is a given noncomputable set. This is shown by analyzing a new and simplified proof of Seetapun's cone avoidance theorem for Ramsey's theorem. We then extend the result to show that every computable 2-coloring of pairs admits a pair of low2 infinite homogeneous sets whose degrees form a minimal pair.

Hirschfeldt and Shore have introduced a notion of stability for infinite posets. We define an arguably more natural notion called weak stability, and we study the existence of infinite computable or low chains or antichains, and of infinite chains and antichains, in infinite computable stable and weakly stable posets. For example, we extend a result of Hirschfeldt and Shore to show that every infinite computable weakly stable poset contains either an infinite low chain or an infinite computable antichain. Our hardest result is that there is an infinite computable weakly stable poset with no infinite chains or antichains. On the other hand, it is easily seen that every infinite computable stable poset contains an infinite computable chain or an infinite antichain. In Reverse Mathematics, we show that SCAC, the principle that every infinite stable poset contains an infinite chain or antichain, is equivalent over RCA0 to WSAC, the corresponding principle for weakly stable posets.

We study the weak truth-table and truth-table degrees of the images of subsets of computable structures under isomorphisms between computable structures. In particular, we show that there is a low c.e. set that is not weak truth-table reducible to any initial segment of any scattered computable linear ordering. Countable subsets of 2ω and Kolmogorov complexity play a major role in the proof.

For X ⊆ ω, let [X]n denote the class of all n-element subsets of X. An infinite set A ⊆ ω is called n-r-cohesive if for each computable function f: [ω]n → {0, 1} there is a finite set F such that f is constant on [A − F]n. We show that for each n > 2 there is no Πn0 set A ⊆ ω which is n-r-cohesive. For n = 2 this refutes a result previously claimed by the authors, and for n ≥ 3 it answers a question raised by the authors.

It is shown that for each computably enumerable set of n-element subsets of ω there is an infinite set A ⊆ ω such that either all n-element subsets of A are in or no n-element subsets of A are in . An analogous result is obtained with the requirement that A be replaced by the requirement that the jump of A be computable from 0(n). These results are best possible in various senses.

We study some generalized notions of cohesiveness which arise naturally in connection with effective versions of Ramsey's Theorem. An infinite set A of natural numbers is n-cohesive (respectively, n-r-cohesive) if A is almost homogeneous for every computably enumerable (respectively, computable) 2-coloring of the n-element sets of natural numbers. (Thus the 1-cohesive and 1-r-cohesive sets coincide with the cohesive and r-cohesive sets, respectively.) We consider the degrees of unsolvability and arithmetical definability levels of n-cohesive and n-r-cohesive sets. For example, we show that for all n ≥ 2, there exists a n-cohesive set. We improve this result for n = 2 by showing that there is a 2-cohesive set. We show that the n-cohesive and n-r-cohesive degrees together form a linear, non-collapsing hierarchy of degrees for n ≥ 2. In addition, for n ≥ 2 we characterize the jumps of n-cohesive degrees as exactly the degrees ≥ 0(n+1) and also characterize the jumps of the n-r-cohesive degrees.

We show that there is a computable Boolean algebra and a computably enumerable ideal I of such that the quotient algebra /I is of Cantor-Bendixson rank 1 and is not isomorphic to any computable Boolean algebra. This extends a result of L. Feiner and is deduced from Feiner's result even though Feiner's construction yields a Boolean algebra of infinite Cantor-Bendixson rank.

It is shown that for any computable field K and any r.e. degree a there is an r.e. set A of degree a and a field F ≃ K with underlying set A such that the field operations of F (including subtraction and division) are extendible to (total) recursive functions. Further, it is shown that if a and b are r.e. degrees with b ≤ a, there is a 1-1 recursive function f: ℚ → ω such that f(ℚ) ∈ a, f(ℤ) ∈ b, and the images of the field operations of ℚ under f can be extended to recursive functions.

We show, roughly speaking, that it requires ω iterations of the Turing jump to decode nontrivial information from Boolean algebras in an isomorphism invariant fashion. More precisely, if α is a recursive ordinal, is a countable structure with finite signature, and d is a degree, we say that has αth-jump degreed if d is the least degree which is the αth jump of some degree c such there is an isomorphic copy of with universe ω in which the functions and relations have degree at most c. We show that every degree d ≥ 0(ω) is the ωth jump degree of a Boolean algebra, but that for n < ω no Boolean algebra has nth-jump degree d < 0(n). The former result follows easily from work of L. Feiner. The proof of the latter result uses the forcing methods of J. Knight together with an analysis of various equivalences between Boolean algebras based on a study of their Stone spaces. A byproduct of the proof is a method for constructing Stone spaces with various prescribed properties.

A first-order sentence Φ is Σ2 if there is a quantifier-free formula Θ such that Φ has the form . The Σ2-theory of a structure for a language ℒis the set of Σ2-sentences of ℒ true in . It was shown independently by Lerman and Shore (see [Le, Theorem VII.4.4]) that the Σ2-theory of the structure = 〈D, ≤ 〉 is decidable, where D is the set of degrees of unsolvability and ≤ is the standard ordering of D. This result is optimal in the sense that the Σ3-theory of is undecidable, a result due to J. Schmerl. (For a proof, see [Le, Theorem VII.4.5]. As Lerman has pointed out, this proof should be corrected by defining θσ to be ∀xσ1(x) rather than ∀x(ψ(x)→ σ1(x)).) Nonetheless, in this paper we extend the decidability result of Lerman and Shore by showing that the Σ2-theory of is decidable, where ⋃ is the least upper bound operator and 0 is the least degree. Of course ⋃ is definable in , but many interesting degree-theoretic results are expressible as Σ2-sentences in the language of ∪ but not as Σ2-sentences in the language of . For instance, Simpson observed that the Posner-Robinson cupping theorem could be used to show that for any nonzero degrees a, b, there is a degree g such that b ≤ a ⋃ g, and b ⋠ g (see [PR, Corollary 6]). However, the Posner-Robinson technique does not seem to suffice to decide the Σ2-theory of ∪. We introduce instead a new method for coding a set into the join of two other sets and use it to decide this theory.

We introduce the notion of “semi-r.e.” for subsets of ω, a generalization of “semirecursive” and of “r.e.”, and the notion of “weakly semirecursive”, a generalization of “semi-r.e.”. We show that A is weakly semirecursive iff, for any n numbers x1, …,xn, knowing how many of these numbers belong to A is equivalent to knowing which of these numbers belong to A. It is shown that there exist weakly semirecursive sets that are neither semi-r.e. nor co-semi-r.e. On the other hand, we exhibit nonzero Turing degrees in which every weakly semirecursive set is semirecursive. We characterize the notion “A is weakly semirecursive and recursive in K” in terms of recursive approximations to A. We also show that if a finite Boolean combination of r.e. sets is semirecursive then it must be r.e. or co-r.e. Several open questions are raised.

In this paper we introduce a new hierarchy of sets and operators which we call the REA hierarchy for “recursively enumerable in and above”. The hierarchy is generated by composing (possibly) transfinite sequences of the pseudo-jump operators considered in Jockusch and Shore [1983]. We there studied pseudo-jump operators defined by analogy with the Turing jump as ones taking a set A to A ⊕ for some index e. We would now call these 1-REA operators and will extend them to α-REA operators for recursive ordinals α in analogy with the iterated Turing jump operators (A → A(α) for α < and Kleene's hyperarithmetic hierarchy. The REA sets will then, of course, be the results of applying these operators to the empty set. They will extend and generalize Kleene's H sets but will still be contained in the class of set singletons thus providing us with a new richer subclass of the set singletons which, as we shall see, is related to the work of Harrington [1975] and [1976] on the problems of Friedman [1975] about the arithmetic degrees of such singletons. Their degrees also give a natural class extending the class H of Jockusch and McLaughlin [1969] by closing it off under transfinite iterations as well as the inclusion of [d, d′] for each degree d in the class. The reason for the class being closed under this last operation is that the REA operators include all operators and so give a new hierarchy for them as well as the sets. This hierarchy also turns out to be related to the difference hierarchy of Ershov [1968], [1968a] and [1970]: every α-r.e. set is α-REA but each level of the REA hierarchy after the first extends all the way through the difference hierarchy although never entirely encompassing even the next level of the difference hierarchy.