The notion of a hyperfinite set comes from nonstandard analysis. Such a set has the internal cardinality of a nonstandard natural number. By a transfer principle such sets share many properties of finite sets. Here we apply this notion to give a hyperfinite model of the Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals. We also extend the method to provide a hyperfinite characterisation of certain transfinite type structures, thus, through the work of Waagbø [14], constructing a hyperfinite model for Martin-Löf type theory. This kind of application is not new. Normann [6] gave a characterisation of the Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals using ‘hyperfinitary’ functionals. The novelty here is that we use a constructive version of hyperfinite functionals and also generalise the method to transfinite types. Many of the results of this paper are constructive, though not the characterisation theorems themselves. Our characterisation of the Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals is a supplement to a number of previous characterisations of topological and recursion-theoretical nature, see [6] for a brief survey. Altogether these characterisations show that the original concept of Kleene and Kreisel forms the correct mathematical model of the idea of finitely based functions of finite types. There is, however, no a priori reason to believe that there is a canonical way to extend the continuous functionals to cover transfinite objects of transfinite type used in, e.g., type theory. Our characterisation of Waagbø's model indicates that the model is natural, not only seen from domain theory but from a higher perspective. Normann and Waagbø (unpublished) have subsequently obtained a limit-space characterisation that further supports this view.

The Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals [6, 7] have been given several alternative characterisations: using Kuratowski's limit spaces (Scarpellini [20]), using their generalisation, filter spaces (Hyland [4]), via hyperfinite functionals (Normann [11]) and perhaps most elegantly using Scott-Ershov domains (Ershov [3], later generalised by Berger [1]). We propose to add yet another characterisation to this list, which may be called model-theoretic in contrast to the others, but which is in fact closely related to Ershov's approach. We use the notion of logically presented domains developed in Palmgren and Stoltenberg-Hansen [17] (originating in the work of [15]). Certain logical types, i.e., finitely consistent sets of formulas, over the full type structure built from ℕ correspond to the continuous functionals in the sense of Kreisel, or to Kleene's associates, while the elements realising the types correspond to functionals having associates (cf. [6]). To define these—the total types—we make a nonstandard extension of the full type structure. The set of nonstandard elements is sufficiently rich to single out the total types. The nonstandard extension also makes it possible to relate the logical presentation to Ershov's approach. The logical form of the domain constructions allows us to use a (generalised) Fréchet power as a nonstandard extension. This extension is constructive, in the sense that it avoids the axiom of choice, as distinguished from the one employed in [11].

We connect the theory of Scott-Ershov domains to first order model theory. The completeness property of domains is related to the model theoretic notion of saturation. In constraint programming this analogy is already used on the level of finite approximations. A simple relation to structures used in nonstandard analysis (ultra powers, Frechet powers) is obtained. This leads to natural logical presentations of domain constructions such as function space, products and the Smyth power domain. Sufficient conditions on models for constructing function spaces are given.

Contents: Introduction. §1: Computable rings and modules. §2: Ideal membership relation. §3: Effective structured domains. §4: Completion of a local ring as a domain. §5: The recursive completion. Epilogue. References. Introduction. Completion is an important general mathematical device. Often, but not always, a completion takes the following form. Let A be a topological algebraic structure whose topology is derived from a metric. For A, a topological algebra  and an embedding i: A →  are constructed such that  is a complete metric space in which A is densely embedded by i. The long list of structures for which such completions exist begins with Cantor's construction of the real number field and includes objects like the p-adic integers, Baire space, and Boolean algebras. In Bourbaki [6] a careful and thorough account of completions for arbitrary topological groups and fields is given, for which it is important to note that the topological structures need not be metrizable, but must possess a uniformity. The effectiveness of the completion process of a computable structure A cannot be readily studied using the tools of computable algebra, simply because the resulting structure  is almost invariably uncountable. However, in particular cases, it has been possible to define and study the substructure Ak of computable elements of Â; this has been done for the structures mentioned above, starting with the field of recursive real numbers. In this paper we analyse the effectivity of the completion of a local ring R. We do this using structured Scott-Ershov domains. Our study may be considered as a prototype containing methods applicable to a broad class of completions, including all the examples mentioned above, except for the real number field, which needs a generalisation of the domain concept. A Scott-Ershov domain D formalises how a set Dt of possibly “infinite” elements, called total elements, is constructed from a set Dc of “finite” elements, called compact elements. This is achieved by means of an approximation ordering which determines a topology on D and, in particular, on Dt. Our methodology is to associate to a given topological algebra A a structured domain D(A) such that the total elements D(A)t form a topological algebra topologically isomorphic to A. In such circumstances A is said to be domain definable by D(A). The theory of computability for domains is now applied to study the effectivity of the topological algebra A.

The theory of abstract computational complexity in ordinary recursion theory (ORT) was initiated by Rabin [7] and Blum [1]. Jacobs [5] generalized the notions to recursion theory on an admissible ordinal α(α-recursion theory) and proved in this setting certain main theorems such as Blum's Theorem and the Compression Theorem. In ORT the notions of “finite” and “bounded” coincide. Thus when lifting a theorem from ORT to α-recursion theory, “finite” may be translated to either “bounded below α” or to the stronger and more natural “α-finite”. Jacobs conjectured that “bounded below α” was the best possible in the theorems mentioned above. In this paper we shall prove that the stronger version of these theorems are, in fact, true. Furthermore our constructions are uniform for all admissible α. Rather than restricting ourselves to α-recursion theory we shall consider transitive rudimentarily closed structures M = 〈M, ∈, R〉 which admit what we call an acceptable prewellordering. The special case M = 〈Lα, ∈〉 and M = 〈Sβ, ∈〉 where α is admissible and β a limit ordinal constitute, respectively, α-recursion theory and β-recursion theory (see Friedman [4]).