English

Reverse mathematics and dimension of posets

Logic 2026-05-11 v3 Combinatorics

Abstract

Order dimension theory measures the complexity of partially ordered sets by quantifying how far they are from being linearly ordered. In this paper we study classical bounding results for order dimension within the framework of reverse mathematics. We focus on principles asserting that the dimension of a poset can be bounded in terms of the dimension of subposets obtained by removing chains or points, denoted by DBin\mathsf{DBi_n}, DBcn\mathsf{DBc_n}, and DBp\mathsf{DB_p}. We prove that, over RCA0\mathsf{RCA}_0, both DBin\mathsf{DBi_n} and DBcn\mathsf{DBc_n} are equivalent to WKL0\mathsf{WKL}_0. To analyze DBp\mathsf{DB_p}, we introduce a natural strengthening DBp+\mathsf{DB^+_p} and show that both DBp\mathsf{DB_p} and DBp+\mathsf{DB^+_p} are provable from WKL0\mathsf{WKL}_0 and from IΣ20\mathsf{I}\Sigma^0_2, while BΣ20\mathsf{B}\Sigma^0_2 does not suffice to prove DBp+\mathsf{DB^+_p}. The latter result is obtained by showing that the statement \lq\lq DBp+\mathsf{DB^+_p} is computably true\rq\rq\ is equivalent to IΣ20\mathsf{I}\Sigma^0_2.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.18759,
  title  = {Reverse mathematics and dimension of posets},
  author = {Alberto Marcone and Andrea Volpi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.18759},
  year   = {2026}
}

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Updated bibliography

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:27:51.931Z