Related papers: Proof-Theoretic Relations between Higman's and Kru…
Kruskal's theorem famously states that finite trees (ordered using an infima-preserving embeddability relation) form a well partial order. Freund, Rathjen, and Weiermann extended this result to general recursive data types with their…
We prove that Higman's lemma is strictly stronger for better quasi orders than for well quasi orders, within the framework of reverse mathematics. In fact, we show a stronger result: the infinite Ramsey theorem (for tuples of all lengths)…
Higman's lemma states that for any well partial order $X$, the partial order $X^*$ of finite sequences with members from $X$ is also well. By combining results due to Girard as well as Sch\"{u}tte and Simpson, one can show that Higman's…
The study of well quasi-orders, wqo, is a cornerstone of combinatorics and within wqo theory Kruskal's theorem plays a crucial role. Extending previous proof-theoretic results, we calculate the $\Pi^1_1$ ordinals of two different versions…
The Kruskal-Friedman theorem asserts: in any infinite sequence of finite trees with ordinal labels, some tree can be embedded into a later one, by an embedding that respects a certain gap condition. This strengthening of the original…
Generalized Higman's Theorem is the direct counterpart of Higman's Theorem that asserts the closure of the class of \emph{better} quasi-orders, instead of the class of \emph{well} quasi-orders, under the construction $P\mapsto P^{<\omega}$…
The uniform Kruskal theorem extends the original result for trees to general recursive data types. As shown by A. Freund, M. Rathjen and A. Weiermann, it is equivalent to $\Pi^1_1$-comprehension, over $\mathsf{RCA_0}$ with the chain…
These are the lecture notes of an introductory course on ordinal analysis. Our selection of topics is guided by the aim to give a complete and direct proof of a mathematical independence result: Kruskal's theorem for binary trees is…
The famous theorem of Higman states that for any well-quasi-order (wqo) $Q$ the embeddability order on finite sequences over $Q$ is also wqo. In his celebrated 1965 paper, Nash-Williams established that the same conclusion holds even for…
The set of finite words over a well-quasi-ordered set is itself well-quasi-ordered. This seminal result by Higman is a cornerstone of the theory of well-quasi-orderings and has found numerous applications in computer science. However, this…
We provide proofs for the fact that certain orders have no descending chains and no antichains.
Several theorems about the equivalence of familiar theories of reverse mathematics with certain well-ordering principles have been proved by recursion-theoretic and combinatorial methods (Friedman, Marcone, Montalban et al.) and with…
Harvey Friedman's gap condition on embeddings of finite labelled trees plays an important role in combinatorics (proof of the graph minor theorem) and mathematical logic (strong independence results). In the present paper we show that the…
The minimal bad sequence argument due to Nash-Williams is a powerful tool in combinatorics with important implications for theoretical computer science. In particular, it yields a very elegant proof of Kruskal's theorem. At the same time,…
We develop a new analysis for the length of controlled bad sequences in well-quasi-orderings based on Higman's Lemma. This leads to tight multiply-recursive upper bounds that readily apply to several verification algorithms for…
We study a pumping lemma for the word/tree languages generated by higher-order grammars. Pumping lemmas are known up to order-2 word languages (i.e., for regular/context-free/indexed languages), and have been used to show that a given…
We show a short proof of Higman's lemma using Friedman's adjacent Ramsey theorem for pairs. This provides an alternative proof of the known upper bound for the reverse mathematical status of Higman's lemma and that of its miniaturised…
We study the well-quasi-order (wqo) consisting of the set of finite trees with leaf labels coming from an arbitrary wqo $Q$, ordered by tree homomorphisms which respect the order on the labels. This is a variant of the usual Kruskal tree…
No natural principle is currently known to be strictly between the arithmetic comprehension axiom (ACA) and Ramsey's theorem for pairs (RT^2_2) in reverse mathematics. The tree theorem for pairs (TT^2_2) is however a good candidate. The…
These lecture notes introduce central notions of impredicative ordinal analysis, such as the Bachmann-Howard ordinal and the method of collapsing, which transforms uncountable proof trees into countable ones. Specifically, we analyze…