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Rayo's function is based on the language of first-order set theory, which is rather powerful. I think it would be interesting to take a step back to a weaker language: second-order arithmetic.

Let

be the standard model of second order arithmetic. We say that a formula

that takes one argument defines a natural number

if

. That is,

is the unique natural number that satisfies

in the standard model. We define the analytical beaver function

to be the the largest natural number definable by a formula that is less than

symbols long plus 1 (or 0 if there is no such number). Since there are only finitely many such formulas, and each formula defines at most one number, this is well defined. As to define a concrete number, we will define the analytical beaver number to be

. Now, you may be wondering what

is doing there? Well, that symbol denotes the set of all formulas in the language of second order arithmetic. In general, we define

to be the largest natural number definable definable by a formula in the set

that is less than

symbols plus 1 (or 0 if there is no such number). Some interesting sets of formulas are those in the analytical hierarchy (which includes the arithmetical hierarchy). We will also define the combination beaver

to be the largest natural number definable definable by a formula from each of the sets

that is less than

symbols plus 1 (or 0 if there is no such number). By convention, we define the analytical beaver for a

level to be the combination of the corresponding

and

levels. For example,

.

We can also consider analytical beavers based on expansions of second order arithmetic. By convention, the analytical beaver of a relativized level of the hierarchy is defined this way.

Question: It is clear that

is not in the analytical hierarchy itself. However,

is, for any other

in the analytical hierarchy. Where do such

fall in the hierarchy? We know they would not fall in

, for example.

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