Levin and Schnorr (independently) introduced the monotone complexity,
Km(α), of a binary string α. We use
monotone complexity to define the relative complexity (or relative
randomness) of reals. We define a partial ordering
≤Km on 2ω by
α ≤Km β iff there is a
constant c such that Km(α ↾ n)
≤ Km(β ↾ n)+c for all n. The
monotone degree of α is the set of all β such that
α ≤Km β and β
≤Km α. We show the monotone
degrees contain an antichain of size
2ℵ₀, a countable dense linear ordering
(of degrees of cardinality 2ℵ₀), and a
minimal pair.
¶ Downey, Hirschfeldt, LaForte, Nies and others have studied a
similar structure, the K-degrees, where K is the prefix-free
Kolmogorov complexity. A minimal pair of K-degrees was constructed by
Csima and Montalbán. Of particular interest are the
noncomputable trivial reals, first constructed by Solovay. We
define a real to be (Km,K)-trivial if for some constant
c, Km(α ↾ n) ≤ K(n)+c for all n.
It is not known whether there is a Km-minimal real, but
we show that any such real must be (Km,K)-trivial.
¶
Finally, we consider the monotone degrees of the computably enumerable
(c.e.) and strongly computably enumerable (s.c.e.) reals. We show
there is no minimal c.e. monotone degree and that Solovay
reducibility does not imply monotone reducibility on the c.e. reals.
We also show the s.c.e. monotone degrees contain an infinite
antichain and a countable dense linear ordering.