UNDECIDABILITY OF THE FIRST ORDER THEORIES OF FREE NONCOMMUTATIVE LIE ALGEBRAS

Abstract

AbstractLet R be a commutative integral unital domain and L a free noncommutative Lie algebra over R. In this article we show that the ring R and its action on L are 0-interpretable in L, viewed as a ring with the standard ring language $+ , \cdot ,0$. Furthermore, if R has characteristic zero then we prove that the elementary theory $Th\left( L \right)$ of L in the standard ring language is undecidable. To do so we show that the arithmetic ${\Bbb N} = \langle {\Bbb N}, + , \cdot ,0\rangle $ is 0-interpretable in L. This implies that the theory of $Th\left( L \right)$ has the independence property. These results answer some old questions on model theory of free Lie algebras.