English

Thin set theorems and cone avoidance

Logic 2019-09-02 v3

Abstract

The thin set theorem RT<,n\mathsf{RT}^n_{<\infty,\ell} asserts the existence, for every kk-coloring of the subsets of natural numbers of size nn, of an infinite set of natural numbers, all of whose subsets of size nn use at most \ell colors. Whenever =1\ell = 1, the statement corresponds to Ramsey's theorem. From a computational viewpoint, the thin set theorem admits a threshold phenomenon, in that whenever the number of colors \ell is sufficiently large with respect to the size nn of the tuples, then the thin set theorem admits strong cone avoidance. Let d0,d1,d_0, d_1, \dots be the sequence of Catalan numbers. For n1n \geq 1, RT<,n\mathsf{RT}^n_{<\infty, \ell} admits strong cone avoidance if and only if dn\ell \geq d_n and cone avoidance if and only if dn1\ell \geq d_{n-1}. We say that a set AA is RT<,n\mathsf{RT}^n_{<\infty, \ell}-encodable if there is an instance of RT<,n\mathsf{RT}^n_{<\infty, \ell} such that every solution computes AA. The RT<,n\mathsf{RT}^n_{<\infty, \ell}-encodable sets are precisely the hyperarithmetic sets if and only if <2n1\ell < 2^{n-1}, the arithmetic sets if and only if 2n1<dn2^{n-1} \leq \ell < d_n, and the computable sets if and only if dnd_n \leq \ell.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.00188,
  title  = {Thin set theorems and cone avoidance},
  author = {Peter Cholak and Ludovic Patey},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.00188},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

30 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T06:27:51.051Z