On the construction of effectively random sets

Abstract

We present a comparatively simple way to construct Martin-Löf random and rec-random sets with certain additional properties, which works by diagonalizing against appropriate martingales. Reviewing the result of Gács and Kučera, for any given set X we construct a Martin-Löf random set from which X can be decoded effectively. By a variant of the basic construction we obtain a rec-random set that is weak truth-table autoreducible and we observe that there are Martin-Löf random sets that are computably enumerable self-reducible. The two latter results complement the known facts that no rec-random set is truth-table autoreducible and that no Martin-Löf random set is Turing-autoreducible [ebert-merkle-vollmer-2002,trakhtenbrot-1970].