English

The strength of Ramsey's theorem for $\alpha$-large sets

Logic 2026-03-26 v2 Combinatorics

Abstract

We calibrate the reverse mathematical strength of a family of extensions of Ramsey's theorem to finite colorings of certain subsets of the natural numbers of unbounded finite dimension. Specifically, we analyze the principles RTk!α\mathsf{RT}^{!\alpha}_k asserting that every kk-coloring of the exactly α\alpha-large subsets of an infinite XNX \subseteq \mathbb{N} admits an infinite homogeneous set, where α\alpha-largeness is defined via systems of fundamental sequences in the style of Ketonen and Solovay. For each countable ordinal α<Γ0\alpha < \Gamma_0 and each k2k \geq 2, we prove over RCA0\mathsf{RCA}_0 that the hierarchy of theorems RTk!\a\mathsf{RT}^{!\a}_k corresponds exactly to the hierarchy of systems axiomatized by closure under transfinite Turing jumps, yielding a fine-grained classification between ACA0\mathsf{ACA}_0 and ATR0\mathsf{ATR}_0. Our results extend previous work on the case α=ω\alpha=\omega and provide a uniform correspondence between countable indecomposable ordinals below Γ0\Gamma_0 and natural Ramsey-like theorems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.22579,
  title  = {The strength of Ramsey's theorem for $\alpha$-large sets},
  author = {Lorenzo Carlucci and Andrea Volpi and Konrad Zdanowski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.22579},
  year   = {2026}
}