arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Andy Zucker.
We show that the big Ramsey degrees of every countable universal $u$-uniform $\omega$-edge-labeled hypergraph are infinite for every $u\geq 2$. Together with a recent result of Braunfeld, Chodounsk\'y, de Rancourt, Hubi\v{c}ka, Kawach, and Kone\v{c}n\'y this finishes full characterisation of unrestricted relational structures with finite big Ramsey degrees.
We show that the big Ramsey degree of the Boolean algebra with 3 atoms within the countable atomless Boolean algebra is infinite.
Big Ramsey degrees of Fra\"iss\'e limits of finitely constrained free amalgamation classes in finite binary languages have been recently fully characterised by Balko, Chodounsk\'y, Dobrinen, Hubi\v{c}ka, Kone\v{c}n\'y, Vena, and Zucker. A special case of this characterisation is the universal homogeneous $K_4$-free graph. We give a self-contained and relatively compact presentation of this case and compute the actual big Ramsey degrees of small graphs.
A Polish group $G$ has the generic point property if any minimal $G$-flow admits a comeager orbit, or equivalently if the universal minimal flow (UMF) does. The class $\mathsf{GPP}$ of such Polish groups is a proper extension of the class $\sf{PCMD}$ of Polish groups with metrizable UMF. Motivated by analogous results for $\mathsf{PCMD}$, we define and explore a robust generalization of $\sf{GPP}$ which makes sense for all topological groups, thus defining the class $\mathsf{TMD}$ of topological groups with tractable minimal dynamics. These characterizations yield novel results even for $\mathsf{GPP}$; for instance, a Polish group is in $\mathsf{GPP}$ iff its UMF has no points of first countability. Motivated by work of Kechris, Pestov, and Todor\v{c}evi\'c that connects topological dynamics and structural Ramsey theory, we state and prove an abstract KPT correspondence which characterizes the class $\mathsf{TMD}$ and shows that $\mathsf{TMD}$ is $\Delta_1$ in the L\'evy hierarchy. We then develop set-theoretic methods which allow us to apply forcing and absoluteness arguments to generalize numerous results about $\mathsf{GPP}$ to all of $\mathsf{TMD}$. We also apply these new set-theoretic methods to first generalize parts of Glasner's structure theorem for minimal, metrizable tame flows to the non-metrizable setting, and then to prove the revised Newelski conjecture regarding definable NIP groups. We conclude by discussing some tantalizing connections between definable NIP groups and $\mathsf{TMD}$ groups.
In recent years, there has been much progress in the field of structural Ramsey theory, in particular in the study of big Ramsey degrees. In all known examples of infinite structures with finite big Ramsey degrees, there is in fact a single expansion of the structure, called a big Ramsey structure, which correctly encodes the exact big Ramsey degrees of every finite substructure simultaneously. The first half of the article collects facts about this phenomenon that have appeared in the literature into a single cohesive framework, thus offering a conceptual survey of big Ramsey structures. We present some original results indicating that the standard methods of proving finite big Ramsey degrees automatically yield big Ramsey structures, often with desirable extra properties. The second half of the article is a survey in the more traditional sense, discussing numerous examples from the literature and showing how they fit into our framework. We also present some general results on how big Ramsey degrees are affected by expanding structures with unary functions.
We develop the theory of ultracoproducts and weak containment for flows of arbitrary topological groups. This provides a nice complement to corresponding theories for p.m.p. actions and unitary representations of locally compact groups. For the class of locally Roelcke precompact groups, the theory is especially rich, allowing us to define for certain families of $G$-flows a suitable compact space of weak types. When $G$ is locally compact, all $G$-flows belong to one such family, yielding a single compact space describing all weak types of $G$-flows.
We prove a general Ramsey theorem for trees with a successor operation. This theorem is a common generalization of the Carlson-Simpson Theorem and the Milliken Tree Theorem for regularly branching trees. Our theorem has a number of applications both in finite and infinite combinatorics. For example, we give a short proof of the unrestricted Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il-R\"odl theorem, and we recover the Graham-Rothschild theorem. Our original motivation came from the study of big Ramsey degrees - various trees used in the study can be viewed as trees with a successor operation. To illustrate this, we give a non-forcing proof of a theorem of Zucker on big Ramsey degrees.
We give an infinitary extension of the Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il-R\"{o}dl theorem for category of relational structures with special type-respecting embeddings.
As a result of 33 intercontinental Zoom calls, we characterise big Ramsey degrees of the generic partial order. This is an infinitary extension of the well known fact that finite partial orders endowed with linear extensions form a Ramsey class (this result was announced by Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and R\"odl in 1984 with first published proof by Paoli, Trotter and Walker in 1985). Towards this, we refine earlier upper bounds obtained by Hubi\v{c}ka based on a new connection of big Ramsey degrees to the Carlson-Simpson theorem and we also introduce a new technique of giving lower bounds using an iterated application of the upper-bound theorem.
We develop infinite-dimensional Ramsey theory for Fra\"iss\'e limits of finitely constrained free amalgamation classes in finite binary languages. We show that our approach is optimal and in particular, recovers the exact big Ramsey degrees proved in [2] for these structures. A crucial step in the work develops the new notion of an A.3(2)-ideal and shows that Todorcevic's Abstract Ramsey Theorem holds when Axiom A.3(2) is replaced by the weaker assumption of an A.3(2)-ideal.
The Halpern-L\"auchli theorem, a combinatorial result about trees, admits an elegant proof due to Harrington using ideas from forcing. In an attempt to distill the combinatorial essence of this proof, we isolate various partition principles about products of perfect Polish spaces. These principles yield straightforward proofs of the Halpern-L\"auchli theorem, and the same forcing from Harrington's proof can force their consistency. We also show that these principles are not ZFC theorems by showing that they put lower bounds on the size of the continuum.
Under no additional assumptions, in this paper we construct a Ramsey expansion for every category of finite objects with finite small Ramsey degrees. Our construction is based on the relationship between small Ramsey degrees, weak amalgamation and recent results about weak Fra\"iss\'e categories. Namely, generalizing the fact that every Ramsey class has amalgamation, we show that classes with finite Ramsey degrees have weak amalgamation. We then invoke the machinery of weak Fra\"iss\'e categories to perform the construction. This improves previous similar results where an analogous construction was carried out under the assumption that everything sits comfortably in a bigger class with enough infrastructure, and that in this wider context there is an ultrahomogeneous structure under whose umbrella the construction takes place.
Given a countable group $G$ and a $G$-flow $X$, a measure $\mu\in P(X)$ is called characteristic if it is $\mathrm{Aut}(X, G)$-invariant. Frisch and Tamuz asked about the existence of a minimal $G$-flow, for any group $G$, which does not admit a characteristic measure. We construct for every countable group $G$ such a minimal flow. Along the way, we are motivated to consider a family of questions we refer to as minimal subdynamics: Given a countable group $G$ and a collection of infinite subgroups $\{\Delta_i: i\in I\}$, when is there a faithful $G$-flow for which every $\Delta_i$ acts minimally?
We characterize the big Ramsey degrees of free amalgamation classes in finite binary languages defined by finitely many forbidden irreducible substructures, thus refining the recent upper bounds given by Zucker. Using this characterization, we show that the Fra\"iss\'e limit of each such class admits a strong big Ramsey structure, implying that the automorphism group of the Fra\"iss\'e limit has a metrizable universal completion flow.
As a result of 33 intercontinental Zoom calls, we characterise big Ramsey degrees of the generic partial order in a similar way as Devlin characterised big Ramsey degrees of the generic linear order (the order of rationals).
Answering a question of Uspenskij, we prove that if $X$ is a closed manifold of dimension $2$ or higher or the Hilbert cube, then the universal minimal flow of $\mathrm{Homeo}(X)$ is not metrizable. In dimension $3$ or higher, we also show that the minimal $\mathrm{Homeo}(X)$-flow consisting of all maximal, connected chains in $X$ has meager orbits.
When $G$ is a Polish group, metrizability of the universal minimal flow has been shown to be a robust dividing line in the complexity of the topological dynamics of $G$. We introduce a class of groups, the CAP groups, which provides a neat generalization of this dividing line to all topological groups. We prove a number of characterizations of this class, having very different flavors, and use these to prove that the class of CAP groups enjoys a number of nice closure properties. As a concrete application, we compute the universal minimal flow of the homeomorphism groups of several scattered topological spaces, building on recent work of Gheysens.
Let $G$ be a locally compact Polish group. A metrizable $G$-flow $Y$ is called model-universal if by considering the various invariant probability measures on $Y$, we can recover every free action of $G$ on a standard Lebesgue space up to isomorphism. Weiss has shown that for countable $G$, there exists a minimal, model-universal flow. In this paper, we extend this result to all locally compact Polish groups.