THE STRENGTH OF THE TREE THEOREM FOR PAIRS IN REVERSE MATHEMATICS

Abstract

AbstractNo natural principle is currently known to be strictly between the arithmetic comprehension axiom (ACA0) and Ramsey’s theorem for pairs ($RT_2^2$) in reverse mathematics. The tree theorem for pairs ($TT_2^2$) is however a good candidate. The tree theorem states that for every finite coloring over tuples of comparable nodes in the full binary tree, there is a monochromatic subtree isomorphic to the full tree. The principle $TT_2^2$ is known to lie between ACA0 and $RT_2^2$ over RCA0, but its exact strength remains open. In this paper, we prove that $RT_2^2$ together with weak König’s lemma (WKL0) does not imply $TT_2^2$, thereby answering a question of Montálban. This separation is a case in point of the method of Lerman, Solomon and Towsner for designing a computability-theoretic property which discriminates between two statements in reverse mathematics. We therefore put the emphasis on the different steps leading to this separation in order to serve as a tutorial for separating principles in reverse mathematics.