Structural properties of oracle classes

Denote by the class of oracles relative to which (collapsing oracles), and by the class of oracles relative to which (separating oracles). We present structural results on and . Using a diagonalization argument, we show that neither nor is closed under disjoint union, also known as join. We show that this implies that neither nor is closed under union, intersection, or symmetric difference. Consequently , the first level of the extended low hierarchy, is not closed under join.