Sarah C. Reitzes | Searcharxiv

arXiv2022

Thin Set Versions of Hindman's Theorem

In this paper we examine the reverse mathematical strength of a variation of Hindman's Theorem HT constructed by essentially combining HT with the Thin Set Theorem TS to obtain a principle which we call thin-HT. thin-HT says that every coloring $c: \mathbb{N} \to \mathbb{N}$ has an infinite set $S \subseteq \mathbb{N}$ whose finite sums are thin for $c$, meaning that there is an $i$ with $c(s) \neq i$ for all $s \in S$. We show that there is a computable instance of thin-HT such that every solution computes $\emptyset'$, as is the case with HT (see Blass, Hirst, and Simpson 1987). In analyzing this proof, we deduce that thin-HT implies $ACA_0$ over $RCA_0 + IΣ^0_2$. On the other hand, using Rumyantsev and Shen's computable version of the Lovász Local Lemma, we show that there is a computable instance of the restriction of thin-HT to sums of exactly 2 elements such that any solution has diagonally noncomputable degree relative to $\emptyset'$. Hence there is a computable instance of this restriction of thin-HT with no $Σ^0_2$ solution.

math.LO↗

arXiv2021

Reduction games, provability, and compactness

Hirschfeldt and Jockusch (2016) introduced a two-player game in which winning strategies for one or the other player precisely correspond to implications and non-implications between $Π^1_2$ principles over $ω$-models of $\mathsf{RCA}_0$. They also introduced a version of this game that similarly captures provability over $\mathsf{RCA}_0$. We generalize and extend this game-theoretic framework to other formal systems, and establish a certain compactness result that shows that if an implication $\mathsf{Q} \to \mathsf{P}$ between two principles holds, then there exists a winning strategy that achieves victory in a number of moves bounded by a number independent of the specific run of the game. This compactness result generalizes an old proof-theoretic fact noted by H.~Wang (1981), and has applications to the reverse mathematics of combinatorial principles. We also demonstrate how this framework leads to a new kind of analysis of the logical strength of mathematical problems that refines both that of reverse mathematics and that of computability-theoretic notions such as Weihrauch reducibility, allowing for a kind of fine-structural comparison between $Π^1_2$ principles that has both computability-theoretic and proof-theoretic aspects, and can help us distinguish between these, for example by showing that a certain use of a principle in a proof is "purely proof-theoretic", as opposed to relying on its computability-theoretic strength. We give examples of this analysis to a number of principles at the level of $\mathsf{B}Σ^0_2$, uncovering new differences between their logical strengths.

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