On some NIP Fragments of Fields

In this note we study sets of NIP formulas in some theories of fields and valued fields, with a special focus on the sets of quantifier-free and existential formulas. First, we give a new proof of the fact that Separably Closed Valued Fields of any characteristic and any imperfection degree are NIP, and use this result to fill some gaps of a proof of the so-called NIP Transfer Theorem for henselian valued fields of equal characteristic. Second, we prove a variant of a theorem of Johnson: every positive characteristic valued field whose existential formulas are NIP is henselian. Finally, we set the ground for the finer question of transfer of NIP formulas of valued fields with bounded quantifier rank. Namely, we prove that for any henselian equicharacteristic valued field, any formula of quantifier rank at most $n\geq 1$ is NIP if and only if the same is true for the residue field and the value group, provided that the valued field is separably defectless Kaplansky and conditional on a multi-variable generalization of a well known statement about indiscernible sequences of singletons in ac-valued fields.