Abstract

In this paper we develop some basic features of Galois cohomology, specifically the connection between first Galois cohomology groups and principal homogeneous spaces, in a model-theoretic context. “Descent theory” also fits into our approach.The model theory involved is elementary, and the reader is referred to [2]. It should be said that we make crucial use of Meq in our analysis. The reader is also referred to Poizat's seminal paper “Une theorie de Galois imaginaire” ([6]). Although our results do not depend on Poizat's work, it is in his paper that the model-theoretic context is suggested for a generalised treatment of Galois theory.Nothing in this paper is particularly deep. We are concerned mainly with translating between the Galois cohomological language and the language of definable sets and definable families of definable sets. We will introduce (in a suitable context) the notion of a definable cocycle (from an automorphism group to a definable group G). The (classical) situation of profinite and continuous cocycles will be a special case. Kolchin's theory of constrained cohomology will be another special case, and our results yield a substantially simpler proof of his Theorem 5 from Chapter VII of [4]. In any case model-theorists will see that definable cocycles correspond to objects with which they are already quite familiar—commuting families of definable bijections.

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