Projective curves and weak second-order logic

Abstract

Given an algebraically closed field $K$ of characteristic zero, we study the incidence relation between points and irreducible projective curves, or more precisely the poset of irreducible proper subvarieties of $\mathbb P^2(K)$. Answering a question of Marcus Tressl, we prove that the poset interprets the field, and it is in fact bi-interpretable with the two-sorted structure consisting of the field $K$ and a sort for its finite subsets. In this structure one can define the integers, so the theory is undecidable. When $K$ is the field of complex numbers we can nevertheless obtain a recursive axiomatization modulo the theory of the integers. We also show that the integers are stably embedded and that the poset of irreducible varieties over the complex numbers is not elementarily equivalent to the one over the algebraic numbers. In combination with the results of Bauval (1985), this implies that the polynomial ring $\C[x]$ is not elementarily equivalent to the polynomial ring $\overline {\Q}[x]$ over the complex algebraic numbers.