English

Big Ramsey Degrees of Countable Ordinals

Combinatorics 2025-11-11 v3

Abstract

Ramsey's theorem states that for all finite colorings of an infinite set, there exists an infinite homogeneous subset. What if we seek a homogeneous subset that is also order-equivalent to the original set? Let SS be a linearly ordered set and aNa \in N. The big Ramsey degree of aa in SS, denoted T(a,S)T(a,S), is the least integer tt such that, for any finite coloring of the aa-subsets of SS, there exists SSS'\subseteq S such that (i) SS' is order-equivalent to SS, and (ii) if the coloring is restricted to the aa-subsets of SS' then at most tt colors are used. Ma\v{s}ulovi\'{c} \& \v{S}obot (2019) showed that T(a,ω+ω)=2aT(a,\omega+\omega)=2^a. From this one can obtain T(a,ζ)=2aT(a,\zeta)=2^a. We give a direct proof that T(a,ζ)=2aT(a,\zeta)=2^a. Ma\v{s}ulovi\'{c} and \v{S}obot (2019) also showed that for all countable ordinals α<ωω\alpha < \omega^\omega, and for all aNa \in N, T(a,α)T(a,\alpha) is finite. We find exact value of T(a,α)T(a,\alpha) for all ordinals less than ωω\omega^\omega and all aNa\in N.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.07192,
  title  = {Big Ramsey Degrees of Countable Ordinals},
  author = {Joanna Boyland and William Gasarch and Nathan Hurtig and Robert Rust},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.07192},
  year   = {2025}
}