More conservativity for weak K\H{o}nig's lemma

Abstract

We prove conservativity results for weak K\H{o}nig's lemma that extend the celebrated result of Harrington (for $\Pi^1_1$-statements) and are somewhat orthogonal to the extension by Simpson, Tanaka and Yamazaki (for statements of the form $\forall X\exists!Y\psi$ with arithmetical $\psi$). In particular, we show that $\mathsf{WKL}_0$ is conservative over $\mathsf{RCA}_0$ for well-ordering principles. We also show that compactness (which characterizes weak K\H{o}nig's lemma) is dispensable for certain results about continuous functions with isolated singularities.