Arch. Math. Logic (2018) 57:159–184 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00153-017-0584-1 Mathematical Logic Model theory of finite and pseudofinite groups Dugald Macpherson1 Received: 27 June 2016 / Accepted: 9 January 2017 / Published online: 19 September 2017 © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication Abstract This is a survey, intended both for group theorists and model theorists, concerning the structure of pseudofinite groups, that is, infinite models of the first- order theory of finite groups. The focus is on concepts from stability theory and generalisations in the context of pseudofinite groups, and on the information this might provide for finite group theory. Keywords Pseudofinite group · Pseudofinite field · Stable theory · NIP theory Mathematics Subject Classification Primary 03C60; Secondary 03C20 · 03C13 · 20A15 1 Introduction This article is mainly a survey, based on notes for a lecture course at the ‘Mod- els and Groups 5’ meeting in Istanbul October 8–10 2015, but closely related to material on pseudofinite structures which I discussed in the ‘IPM conference on set theory and model theory’, Tehran, October 12–16 2015. The focus below is mainly on pseudofinite groups which are simple in the group-theoretic sense, on the content for pseudofinite groups of model-theoretic tameness conditions generalising stability, and on the implications for finite group theory. The paper is intended for both logicians Research partially supported by EPSRC Grant EP/K020692/1. B Dugald Macpherson
[email protected] 1 School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK 123 160 D. Macpherson and group theorists, so contains considerably more model-theoretic background than is standard for an article in a logic journal.