The strong anticupping property for recursively enumerable degrees

Abstract

Following Soare [11] we say a recursively enumerable (r.e.) degree a has the anticupping (a.c.) property if there is a nonzero r.e. degree b < a such that for no r.e. c < a does a = b ∪ c.Cooper [2] and Yates showed that 0′ has the a.c. property, while Harrington (see Miller [6]) proved that every high r.e. degree a has the a.c. property.The recent paper by Ambos-Spies, Jockusch, Shore and Soare [1] describes a general theoretical framework for cupping and capping below 0′ which seems likely to be useful in a wider context.Definition. (1) We say b is strongly noncuppable belowa if 0 < b < a and, for each d < a, b ∪ d ≠ a.(2) We say an r.e. a has the strong anticupping property if there is an r.e. b which is strongly noncuppable below a.The main results on cupping in (≤ 0′) are due to Epstein, Posner and Robinson. For instance it is known (Posner and Robinson [8]) that the s.a.c. property fails for 0′.We prove below that r.e. degrees with the s.a.c. property do exist, hence obtaining a nonzero r.e. degree a such that (≤ a) ≢e(≤h) for any high r.e. degree h. This result, obtained by means of an infinite injury construction in (≤ 0′), extends Theorem 2 of [3], proved using a finite injury construction in (≤ 0′).Our main source of notation and terminology is [3].