arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Su Gao.
These open problems were presented in the Problem Sessions held during the Tianyuan Workshop on Definability and Computation, June 22-26, 2026. The problems are organized into sections named after their contributors, in the order of their presentations during the workshop. Notes were taken and compiled by Wei Dai, Xiangxi Hu, Yingying Jiang, Ruiwen Li, Tianhao Wang, Xu Wang, and Jie Zou.
In this paper we study Borel graphs generated by finitely many commuting Borel functions. We give a geometric analysis of the free part of such graphs based on marker sets and marker regions. Assuming the existence of $r$-forward-independent hitting sets with bounded syndeticity, we obtain marker decompositions of the free part into rootless and rooted regions with controlled geometry. As applications, we derive finite Borel asymptotic dimension and hyperfiniteness, and obtain upper bounds for Borel edge chromatic numbers which improve previously known results. For the case in which each of the commuting Borel functions is bounded-to-one, we verify the existence of $r$-forward-independent hitting sets with syndeticity $Cr$ for some constant $C$. This gives another proof of a recent theorem of Shinko-Weilacher-Yu, and is used to show that if one of the commuting Borel functions is injective and another one is bounded-to-one and exactly even-to-one, then the graph has a Borel perfect matching.
We give an answer to a question of Xu and Ye (Disjointness with all minimal systems under group actions, to appear in Israel J. Math., arxiv:2212.07830) on the denseness of distal points in the Bernoulli shift $2^G$ for a countable discrete group $G$. For a related but stronger notion of almost automorphic points, we answer the similar question by showing that the corresponding collection of the groups coincides with maximal almost periodic ones. These characterizations allow us to construct 2-step nilpotent groups for which the answers to the Xu-Ye question differ. In search for an intrinsic answer to the Xu-Ye question, we introduce a notion of point-distal radical for a countable discrete group and show that a necessary condition is for the point-distal radical to be trivial. Finally, we consider some related questions, and show that the collection of all countable groups $G$ for which the set of distal points is dense in $2^G$ is closed under finite-index extension, and that the collection of countable groups $G$ for which the constant sequences are the only distal (almost automorphic) points coincides with the minimally almost periodic ones.
We prove the existence of clopen strong marker sets in $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$ for arbitrary finite generating sets. Specifically, for any positive integers $n, d_0\geq 1$ and any finite generating set $S\subseteq \mathbb{Z}^n$, we construct a clopen set $M\subseteq F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$ and a positive integer $\Delta$ such that (1) for any distinct $x,y\in M$ in the same orbit, $\rho(x,y)\geq d_0$; (2) for any $v\in S$ and any $x\in F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$, there are non-negative integers $a,b\leq \Delta$ such that $av\cdot x\in M$ and $-bv\cdot x\in M$. Here $\rho$ denotes the Euclidean metric. The same result then holds for the standard supremum-norm metric $\rho_\infty$ (with an adjusted constant), by the equivalence of norms on $\mathbb{Z}^n$. The proof introduces polyhedral packages in $\mathbb{R}^n$ as a generalization of the rectangular packages used in earlier work, enabling the construction to handle generating vectors with arbitrary coordinate patterns. As an application, we obtain a continuous proper edge $(2|S|+1)$-coloring of the Schreier graph on $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$ with generating set $S$, recovering a result of Gao--Wang--Wang.
This paper considers the combinatorics of continuous and Borel rectangular partitions of free actions of $\mathbb{Z}^n$ on $0$-dimensional Polish spaces, specifically the free part $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$ of the shift action of $\mathbb{Z}^n$ on the space $2^{\mathbb{Z}^n}$. This is done through the study of a corresponding notion of regulated partitions of $\mathbb{R}^n$. The main concepts studied are the continuous and Borel {\em regulation} numbers of the partition. This is defined as the maximum number of rectangles in the corresponding regulated partition that can intersect in a point. The continuous and Borel regulation numbers $\gamma_c$, $\gamma_B$ are the minimum possible values of these numbers as we range over continuous (respectively Borel) rectangular partitions of $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$. It is shown that for $n=2$ that $\gamma_c=\gamma_B=3$, and for $n \geq 3$ that $n+2\leq \gamma_B \leq \gamma_c \leq 3\cdot 2^{n-2}$. For $n=3$ we improve this to $\gamma_c=\gamma_B=5$. This shows a striking difference between the Borel combinatorics of dimension $n=2$ and dimensions $n>2$.
In this paper we study the descriptive complexity of the topological orbit equvalence relation for some Borel classes of Cantor minimal systems. Specifically, we study the Borel class of all Cantor minimal systems with only finitely many ergodic measures, and show that the orbit equivalence for this class is Borel bireducible with the equivalence relation $=^+$. We prove the same for the subclass of regular $\{0, 1\}$-Toeplitz subshifts or that of the uniquely ergodic minimal subshifts. We also study the orbit equivalence for the Borel class of minimal subshifts of finite topological rank. Denote by $R_n$ the orbit equivalence for minimal subshifts of topological rank $n\geq 2$. We prove that for any $n\geq 2$, $R_n$ is virtually countable, i.e., Borel reducible to a countable Borel equivalence relation. Moreover, $R_2$ is virtually amenable. On the other hand, $R_n$ is not smooth when $n\geq 2$, is not virtually hyperfinite when $n\geq 4$, and is not virtually treeable when $n\geq 5$. For any $n\geq 2$, our contructions yield uniquely ergodic minimal subshifts of topological rank exactly $n$.
We prove that topological isomorphism on procountable groups is not classifiable by countable structures, in the sense of descriptive set theory. In fact, the equivalence relation $\ell_\infty$ expressing that two sequences of reals have a bounded difference is Borel reducible to it. This marks substantial progress on an open problem of Kechris, Nies and Tent (2018): to determine the exact complexity of the isomorphism relation among all non-archimedean Polish groups.
We prove that the epimorphism relation is a complete analytic quasi-order on the space of countable groups. In the process, we obtain the result of independent interest that the epimorphism relation on pointed reflexive graphs is complete.
In this paper we consider the Borel combinatorics of Schreier graphs of $\mathbb{Z}$-actions with arbitrary finite generating sets. We formulate the Borel combinatorics in terms of existence of Borel equivariant maps from $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}})$ to subshifts of finite type. We then show that the Borel combinatorics and the continuous combinatorics coincide, and both are decidable. This is in contrast with the case of $\mathbb{Z}^2$-actions. We then turn to the problem of computing Borel chromatic numbers for such graphs. We give an algorithm for this problem which runs in exponential time. We then prove some bounds for the Borel chromatic numbers and give a formula for the case where the generating set has size 4.
A topological group $G$ is said to have the L\'evy property if it admits a dense subgroup which is decomposed as the union of an increasing sequence of compact subgroups $\mathcal{G}=\{G_i:i\in\mathbb{N}\}$ of $G$ which exhibits concentration of measure in the sense of Gromov and Milman. We say that $G$ has the strong L\'evy property whenever the sequence $\mathcal{G}$ is comprised of finite subgroups. In this paper we give several new classes of isometry groups and countable topological groups with the strong L\'evy property. We prove that if $\Delta$ is a countable distance value set with arbitrarily small values, then $\mbox{Iso}(\mathbb{U}_\Delta)$, the isometry group of the Urysohn $\Delta$-metric space equipped with the pointwise convergence topology, where $\mathbb{U}_\Delta$ is equipped with the metric topology, has the strong L\'evy property. We also prove that if $\mathcal{L}$ is a Lipschitz continuous signature, then $\mbox{Iso}(\mathbb{U}_{\mathcal{L}})$, the isometry group of the unique separable Urysohn $\mathcal{L}$-structure, has the strong L\'evy property. In addition, our approach shows that any countable omnigenous locally finite group can be given a topology with the L\'evy property. As a consequence to our results, we obtain at least continuum many pairwise nonisomorphic countable topological groups or isometry groups with the strong L\'evy property.
These open problems were presented in the Problem Sessions held during the Tianyuan Workshop on Computability Theory and Descriptive Set Theory, June 16-20, 2025. The problems are organized into sections named after their contributors, in the order of their presentations during the workshop. Notes were taken and compiled by Wei Dai, Feng Li, Ruiwen Li, Ming Xiao, Xu Wang, V\'ictor Hugo Ya\~nez Salazar, and Yang Zheng.
The concept of an omnigenous locally finite group was introduced in [2] as a generalization of Hall's universal countable locally finite group. In this paper we show that the class of all countable omnigenous locally finite groups is Borel complete, hence it has the maximum Borel cardinality of isomorphism types among all countable structures. [2] M. Etedadialiabadi, S. Gao, F. Le Ma\^{i}tre, J. Melleray, Dense locally finite subgroups of automorphism groups of ultraextensive spaces, Adv. Math. 391 (2021), 107966.
In this paper we study some basic problems about Toeplitz subshifts of finite topological rank. We define the notion of a strong Toeplitz subshift of finite rank $K$ by combining the characterizations of Toeplitz-ness and of finite topological rank $K$ from the point of view of the Bratteli--Vershik representation or from the $\mathcal{S}$-adic point of view. The characterization problem asks if for every $K\geq 2$, every Toeplitz subshift of topological rank $K$ is a strong Toeplitz subshift of rank $K$. We give a negative answer to the characterization problem by constructing a Toeplitz subshift of topological rank $2$ which fails to be a strong Toeplitz subshift of rank $2$. However, we show that the set of all strong Toeplitz subshifts of finite rank is generic in the space of all infinite minimal subshifts. In the second part we consider several classification problems for Toeplitz subshifts of topological rank $2$ from the point of view of descriptive set theory. We completely determine the complexity of the conjugacy problem, the flip conjugacy problem, and the bi-factor problem by showing that, as equivalence relations, they are hyperfinite and not smooth. We also consider the inverse problem for all Toeplitz subshifts. We give a criterion for when a Toeplitz subshift is conjugate to its own inverse, and use it to show that the set of all such Toeplitz subshifts is a meager set in the space of all infinite minimal subshifts. Finally, we show that the automorphism group of any Toeplitz subshift of finite rank is isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}\oplus C$ for some finite cyclic group $C$, and for every nontrivial finite cyclic group $C$, $\mathbb{Z}\oplus C$ can be realized as the isomorphism type of an automorphism group of a strong Toeplitz subshift of finite rank greater than $2$.
We prove the existence of clopen marker sets with some strong regularity property. For each $n\geq 1$ and any integer $d\geq 1$, we show that there are a positive integer $D$ and a clopen marker set $M$ in $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$ such that (1) for any distinct $x,y\in M$ in the same orbit, $\rho(x,y)\geq d$; (2) for any $1\leq i\leq n$ and any $x\in F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$, there are non-negative integers $a, b\leq D$ such that $a\cdot x\in M$ and $-b\cdot x\in M$. As an application, we obtain a clopen tree section for $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$. Based on the strong marker sets, we get a quick proof that there exist clopen continuous edge $(2n+1)$-colorings of $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$. We also consider a similar strong markers theorem for more general generating sets. In dimension 2, this gives another proof of the fact that for any generating set $S\subseteq \mathbb{Z}^2$, there is a continuous proper edge $(2|S|+1)$-coloring of the Schreier graph of $F(2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$ with generating set $S$.
In this paper we address the question: How many pairwise non-isomorphic extremely amenable groups are there which are separable metrizable or even Polish? We show that there are continuum many such groups. In fact we construct continuum many pairwise non-isomorphic extremely amenable groups as automorphism groups of countable structures. We also consider this classification problem from the point of view of descriptive set theory by showing that the class of all extremely amenable closed subgroups of $S_\infty$ is Borel and their isomorphism relation is more complex than any isomorphism relation of countable structures in the Borel reducibility hierarchy.
We prove that for any generating set $S$ of $\mathbb {Z}^n$, the continuous edge chromatic number of the Schreier graph of the Bernoulli shift action $G=F(S,2^{\mathbb{Z}^n})$ is $\chi'_c(G)=\chi'(G)+1$. In particular, for the standard generating set, the continuous edge chromatic number of $F(2^{\mathbb {Z}^n})$ is $2n+1$.
In this paper we first consider hyperfinite Borel equivalence relations with a pair of Borel $\mathbb{Z}$-orderings. We define a notion of compatibility between such pairs, and prove a dichotomy theorem which characterizes exactly when a pair of Borel $\mathbb{Z}$-orderings are compatible with each other. We show that, if a pair of Borel $\mathbb{Z}$-orderings are incompatible, then a canonical incompatible pair of Borel $\mathbb{Z}$-orderings of $E_0$ can be Borel embedded into the given pair. We then consider hyperfinite-over-finite equivalence relations, which are countable Borel equivalence relations admitting Borel $\mathbb{Z}^2$-orderings. We show that if a hyperfinite-over-hyperfinite equivalence relation $E$ admits a Borel $\mathbb{Z}^2$-ordering which is self-compatible, then $E$ is hyperfinite.
We define some natural notions of strong and weak Borel Ramsey properties for countable Borel equivalence relations and show that they hold for a countable Borel equivalence relation if and only if the equivalence relation is smooth. We also consider some variation of the notion for hyperfinite non-smooth Borel equivalence relations.