On ultrafilter extensions of first-order models and ultrafilter interpretations

Abstract: There exist two known canonical types of ultrafilter extensions of first-order models; one comes from modal logic and universal algebra, another one from model theory and algebra of ultrafilters, with ultrafilter extensions of semigroups as its main precursor. By a classical fact of general topology, the space of ultrafilters over a discrete space is its largest compactification; the ultrafilter extensions generalize this fact to discrete spaces endowed with an arbitrary first-order structure. Results of such kind are referred to as extension theorems. We offer a uniform approach to both types of extensions based on the idea to extend the extension procedure itself. Then we propose a generalization of the standard concept of first-order interpretations in which functional and relational symbols are interpreted rather by ultrafilters over sets of functions and relations than by functions and relations themselves, and define ultrafilter models with an appropriate semantics for them. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions under which ultrafilter models coincide with the canonical ultrafilter extensions of some ordinary models, and obtain their topological characterization. Further we propose even a wider concept of ultrafilter models together with their semantics based on limits of ultrafilters, and show that the new concept absorbs the former one as well as the ordinary concept of first-order models. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions under which ultrafilter models in the wide sense coincide with those in the narrow sense or with the ultrafilter extensions of some ordinary models. Finally we prove extension theorems for ultrafilter models.