A partition theorem for scattered order types

Pter Komjth e a Saharon Shelah October 6, 2003

Abstract If is a scattered order type, a cardinal, then there exists a scattered order type such that []1 0 holds. ,

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In this note we prove a Ramsey type statement on scattered order types. A trivial fact on ordinals implies the following statement. If is an innite cardinal, then + (+ )1 . It is less trivial but still easy to show that if is an order type, a cardinal then there is some order type that ()1 holds. One can say that these results show that the classes of ordinals and order types are both Ramsey classes in the natural sense; given a target element and a cardinal for the number of colors, there is another element of the class, which, when colored with the required number of colors, always has a monocolored copy of the target. One can wonder which other classes have similar Ramsey properties. A natural, and well investigated, class in between is the class of scattered order types. For this class, the Ramsey property fails for the following well known and simple reason. There is some scattered order type that for every scattered one has []1 . See Lemma 1. In this paper we show that this is the most in the negative direction, that is, for every scattered order type and cardinal there exists a scattered order type such that []1 holds. , Notation. We use the standard axiomatic set theory notation. If , are order types, then denotes that there is an order preserving embedding of into , that is, every ordered set of order type has a subset of order type . If is an order type, then denotes the reverse order type, that is, if is the order type of (S, <), then is the order type of (S, >). is the ordinal of the set of natural numbers, (N, <). is the order type of the set of rational numbers, (Q, <). If , are order types, is a cardinal, ()1 denotes the following statement. If (S, <) is an ordered set of order type and f : S then for some i < the subset f 1 (i) contains a subset of order type . That is, if a
Research This

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partially supported by Hungarian National Research Grant T 032455. research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation. Publication 796.

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set of order type is colored with colors, then there is a monochromatic . If the statement does not hold, we cross the arrow, ()1 If , are order types, , cardinals, then []1 denotes the following , statement. If (S, <) is an ordered set of order type and f : S then there is a subset X of cardinality such that the set {x S : f (x) X} contains a subset of order type . Again, crossing the arrow denotes the negation of the statement; []1 . Notice that ()1 is equivalent to []1 . ,1 , If , are order types, is a cardinal, []1 denotes the following statement. If (S, <) is an ordered set of order type then there is a function f : S such that on every subset of S of order type , f assumes every value. If the statement fails that is, we have a positive statement on all f : S function, then we do not cross the arrow; []1 The order type is scattered i . Hausdor proved that the class of scattered order types is exactly the smallest class containing 0, 1, and closed under well ordered and reversely well ordered sums (see [1], [2], [3]). Lemma 1. If S is an ordered set with the scattered order type then there n is some f : S such that f 1 (n) has no subset of order type ( + ) . 2 1 Therefore, () where = 1 + ( + ) + ( + ) . Proof. The second statement obviously follows from the rst one. In order to prove the rst statement, with Hausdor characterization of scattered order types it suces to show it for (S, <) which is the well ordered sum of the ordered sets {(Si , <) : i < } and we have the required function fi : Si for every i < . Dene f : S as follows. f (x) = fi (x) + 1 when i < is the unique n+1 ordinal that x Si . If we now have a set of order type ( + ) in color n n + 1 then the copies of ( + ) in it left side must all but nitely many be in the same Si , of color n, which contradicts the assumption on fi . Before proceeding to our main theorem we need to show a technical result. In what follows for an ordinal we denote by FS() the set of all nite decreasing sequences from , that is, an element s is of the form s = s(0)s(1) s(n 1) with > s(0) > s(1) > > s(n 1). Here n = |s| is the length of s. The extension of the string s with one ordinal is denoted by s. We therefore, identify nite subsets of + with decreasingly ordered strings. If is an ordinal, then an -tree is a system of ordinals {x(s) : s FS()} with the following properties: x(s) < x(s ) < x(s) for < < min(s).

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Theorem 1. Assume that is an ordinal and is a cardinal. Set = 0 + || . Assume that F : FS(+ ) then there exist an -tree {x(s) : s FS()} and a function c : such that F x s(0) , x s(0)s(1) , , x s(0)s(1) s(n) 2 = c(n)

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holds for every element s = s(0)s(1) s(n) of length n + 1 of the tree. Proof. We dene, for every s FS() and for every function c : a rank rc (s) as follows. Assume that s = s(0)s(1) s(n 1). rc (s) = 1 if for some 0 i < n we have F (s(0)s(1) s(i)) = c(i). Otherwise, we declare that rc (s) 0. Then we dene by induction on when rc (s) holds; we set rc (s) if and only if for every < we have tp { < min(s) : rc (s) } . Naturally, rc (s) = holds if rc (s) but rc (s) + 1 is not true. Assume rst that for some function c : we have rc () . In this case we can select the -tree as required in the Theorem with the additional property that rc x s(0) , x s(0)s(1) , , x s(0)s(1) s(n) s(n).

To show this we have to show that if we are given an s with rc (s) , then we can select the ordinals {x : < } with x < x < min(s) for < < and with rc (sx ) for < . To this end, we let be the supremum of the rst ordinals x with the property that rc (sx) . Notice that for < and the conality of is is . We are going to select by transnite recursion the elements x < as required. At step we have the elements {x : < } selected and as sup({x : < }) sup({ : < }) we have sup({x : < }) < and so we can choose x . Assume now that for every function c : there holds rc () < . In this case we construct by induction on 0 n < the ordinals
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{x(n, , s) : < + , s : k , k n}, the ordinals d(n) < , and for every c : , the values 1 (n, c) < with the following properties x(n, , s ) < x(n, , s ) < x(n, , s)(1 |s| < n, < < min(s)) < x(n, , s)
+

(1) (2)

and nally, if < , s : n , 1 k n, and we set yi = x(n, , s|i), then F (y0 , . . . , yk ) = d(k) (3) (4)

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and rc (y0 , . . . , yk ) = (k, c) hold for every c : . To start, we select + ordinals x(0, , ) ( < + ) such that the value F (x(0, , )) is the same, let this be d(0), and for every c : the value rc x(0, , ) is the same, this will be (0, c). This is possible, by the pigeon hole principle, counting possibilities. 3

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Assume that we have the result for some value n and we have the corresponding system {x(n, , s) : < + , s : k , k n} with < x(n, , s). Thinning out this system, and re-indexing, we can achieve + < x(n + 1, , s). We can dene x(n + 1, , s ) < x(n, , s) for < satisfying (1) and (2). Thinning and re-indexing, we can modify this system so that if we set yi = x(n+ 1, , s|i) for i n + 1, then F (y0 , . . . , yn+1 ) = d(n + 1) and rc (y0 , . . . , yn+1 ) = (s, c) hold for every s : n , c : , i.e., the color and the rank do not depend on the last value. Repeating this, again thinning and re-indexing we nally get that the value of rc (y0 , . . . , yn+1 ) depends only on c, so it is a value (n + 1, c), as claimed. For the above function d : we have that (0, d) > (1, d) > a contradiction. In order to handle scattered order types we represent them. If is an ordinal then let H() be the set of all f : {1, 0, 1} functions for which the set D(f ) = { < : f () = 0} is nite. Order H() as follows. f < f i f () < f () holds for the largest with f () = f (). This clearly orders H(). Lemma 2. The order type of (H(), <) is scattered. Proof. Assume that the mapping q fq is an order preserving injection for q Q. Let < be the least ordinal that occurs as the largest ordinal where fq , fq dier, for some q < q . Now choose the rational numbers q , q with q < q < q < q . Then all four functions fq ,fq , fq ,fq agree above , and some two at , too, a contradiction. Lemma 3. Every scattered order type can be embedded into some (H(), <). Proof. Using Hausdors characterization it suces to show that if some order types can be so represented then any well ordered and reverse well ordered sum of them can also be so represented. For this, it suces to show that the antilexicographic products H() and H() can be embedded into H(+). Indeed, if we map the pair (f, ) to the function g which is f restricted to and in the interval [, + ) is everywhere zero except at + where it is 1, then this is the required embedding for H() . For the other case we use extensions that assume 1 at exactly one place. Given an -tree {x(s) : s FS()} + we dene an injection : H() H(+ ) as follows. If f H(), D(f ) = {0 , . . . , n } in decreasing enumeration, then set j = x ({j , . . . , 0 }) for 0 j n. Now (f ) = g where D(g) = {0 , . . . , n } and g(j ) = f (j ). Lemma 4. This mapping : H() H(+ ) is order preserving. Proof. Assume that f , f H(), D(f ) = {0 , . . . , n }, D(f ) = {0 , . . . , m } in decreasing enumeration. Let r be the largest index that for i < r i = i and 4

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f (i ) = f (i ) hold. On some we have f () < f () where either = r = r or = r D(f ) or = r D(f ). / / Set j = x ({j , . . . , 0 }) for j < r and = x ({, j1 , . . . , 0 }). Then the functions (f ) and (f ) agree above and (f )() < (f )() and we are done. Theorem 2. If is a scattered order type, is a cardinal, then there exists a scattered order type such that []1 0 , holds. Proof. By Lemmas 2., 3. it suces to show that if is an ordinal, a cardinal, then for some , the ordered set (H(+ ), <) has the property that for every coloring with colors there is a subset isomorphic to (H(), <) which is colored with only countably many colors. Select as in Theorem 1. Assume that G : (H(+ ), <) is a coloring. Let F be the following coloring of FS(+ ). If s = s(0)s(1) s(n 1) is an element of it, let F (s) be the following function dened on {1, 1} {1, 1}. F (i0 , . . . , in1 ) = G(f ) where f is the function with D(f ) = s and f (s(j)) = ij . Notice that this is a coloring with colors. By Theorem 1 there is an -tree {x(s) : s FS()} such that F x s(0) , x s(0)s(1) , , x s(0)s(1) s(n) = c(n).

holds for some function c. If we now consider the corresponding mapping : H() H(+ ) then it gives a subset of (H(+ ), <) isomorphic to (H(), <) getting only colors.
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References
[1] P. Erds, A. Hajnal: On a classication of denumerable order types and an o application to the partition calculus, Fundamenta Mathematicae, 51(1962), 117129. [2] F. Hausdor: Grundzge einer Theorie der Geordnete Mengen, Math. u Ann., 65(1908), 435505. [3] Joseph G. Rosenstein: Linear orderings, Academic Press, 1982.

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Pter Komjth e a Department of Computer Science Etvs University o o Budapest, P.O.Box 120 1518, Hungary e-mail: kope@cs.elte.hu 5

Saharon Shelah Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University, Givat Ram, 91904, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: shelah@math.huji.ac.il

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