Structures Associated with Real Closed Fields and the Axiom of Choice

An integer part I of a real closed field K is a discretely ordered subring with minimal element 1 such that, for every x in K, I contains some i such that x is between i and i+1 in the ordering of K. Mourgues and Ressayre showed that every real closed field has an integer part. Their construction implicitely uses the axiom of choice. We show that the axiom of choice is actually necessary to obtain the result by constructing a transitive model of ZF (i.e. set theory without the axiom of choice) which contains a real closed field without an integer part. Then we analyze some cases where the axiom of choice is not necessary for obtaining an integer part. An integer part I of a real closed field K is a discretely ordered subring of K with minimal positive element 1 such that, for every x in K, I contains some i such that x is between i and i+1 in the ordering of K. Mourgues and Ressayre showed that every real closed field has an integer part. Their construction implicitly uses the axiom of choice. We show that the axiom of choice is actually necessary to obtain the result by constructing a transitive model of ZF (i.e. set theory without the axiom of choice) which contains a real closed field without an integer part. Then we analyze some cases where the axiom of choice is not necessary for obtaining an integer part. On the way, we demonstrate that a class of questions containing the question whether the axiom of choice is necessary for the proof of a certain ZFC-theorem is algorithmically undecidable. We further apply the methods to show that it is independent of ZF whether every real closed field has a value group section and a residue field section. This also sheds some light on the possibility to effectivize constructions of integer parts.