Every incomplete computably enumerable truth-table degree is branching

If r is a reducibility between sets of numbers, a natural question to ask about the structure ? _r of the r-degrees containing computably enumerable sets is whether every element not equal to the greatest one is branching (i.e., the meet of two elements strictly above it). For the commonly studied reducibilities, the answer to this question is known except for the case of truth-table (tt) reducibility. In this paper, we answer the question in the tt case by showing that every tt-incomplete computably enumerable truth-table degree a is branching in ? _tt . The fact that every Turing-incomplete computably enumerable truth-table degree is branching has been known for some time. This fact can be shown using a technique of Ambos-Spies and, as noticed by Nies, also follows from a relativization of a result of Degtev. We give a proof here using the Ambos-Spies technique because it has not yet appeared in the literature. The proof uses an infinite injury argument. Our main result is the proof when a is Turing-complete but tt-incomplete. Here we are able to exploit the Turing-completeness of a in a novel way to give a finite injury proof. Received: 22 January 1999 / Revised version: 12 July 1999 / Published online: 21 December 2000