The Lovász local lemma (LLL) is a technique from combinatorics for proving existential results. There are many different versions of the LLL. One of them, the lefthanded local lemma, is particularly well suited for applications to two player games. There are also constructive and computable versions of the LLL. The chief object of this thesis is to prove an effective version of the lefthanded local lemma and to apply it to effectivise constructions of non-repetitive sequences.

The second goal of this thesis is to categorize some classes of cohesive powers. We completely describe both the isomorphism types of cohesive powers of equivalence structures and injection structures, as well as clarify the relationship between these cohesive powers and their original structures. We also describe the finite condensation of cohesive powers of computable copies of the integers as a linear order by cohesive sets whose complement are computably enumerable.

Finally, we investigate the possibility of decomposing problems in the Weihrauch degrees into a product of first order part and second order part. We give a preliminary result in this direction.

Abstract prepared by Daniel Mourad.

E-mail: daniel.mourad@uconn.edu

URL: https://daniel-mourad.scholar.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2530/2023/06/ThesisFinalWithRevisions-2.pdf

This thesis is devoted to the exploration of the complexity of some mathematical problems using the framework of computable analysis and (effective) descriptive set theory. We will especially focus on Weihrauch reducibility as a means to compare the uniform computational strength of problems. After a short introduction of the relevant background notions, we investigate the uniform computational content of problems arising from theorems that lie at the higher levels of the reverse mathematics hierarchy.

We first analyze the strength of the open and clopen Ramsey theorems. Since there is not a canonical way to phrase these theorems as multi-valued functions, we identify eight different multi-valued functions (five corresponding to the open Ramsey theorem and three corresponding to the clopen Ramsey theorem) and study their degree from the point of view of Weihrauch, strong Weihrauch, and arithmetic Weihrauch reducibility.

We then discuss some new operators on multi-valued functions and study their algebraic properties and the relations with other previously studied operators on problems. In particular, we study the first-order part and the deterministic part of a problem f, capturing the Weihrauch degree of the strongest multi-valued problem that is reducible to f and that, respectively, has codomain $\mathbb {N}$ or is single-valued.

These notions proved to be extremely useful when exploring the Weihrauch degree of the problem $\mathsf {DS}$ of computing descending sequences in ill-founded linear orders. They allow us to show that $\mathsf {DS}$ , and the Weihrauch equivalent problem $\mathsf {BS}$ of finding bad sequences through non-well quasi-orders, while being very “hard” to solve, are rather weak in terms of uniform computational strength. We then generalize $\mathsf {DS}$ and $\mathsf {BS}$ by considering $\boldsymbol {\Gamma }$ -presented orders, where $\boldsymbol {\Gamma }$ is a Borel pointclass or $\boldsymbol {\Delta }^1_1$ , $\boldsymbol {\Sigma }^1_1$ , $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^1_1$ . We study the obtained $\mathsf {DS}$ -hierarchy and $\mathsf {BS}$ -hierarchy of problems in comparison with the (effective) Baire hierarchy and show that they do not collapse at any finite level.

Finally, we work in the context of geometric measure theory and we focus on the characterization, from the point of view of descriptive set theory, of some conditions involving the notions of Hausdorff/Fourier dimension and Salem sets. We first work in the hyperspace $\mathbf {K}([0,1])$ of compact subsets of $[0,1]$ and show that the closed Salem sets form a $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3$ -complete family. This is done by characterizing the complexity of the family of sets having sufficiently large Hausdorff or Fourier dimension. We also show that the complexity does not change if we increase the dimension of the ambient space and work in $\mathbf {K}([0,1]^d)$ . We also generalize the results by relaxing the compactness of the ambient space and show that the closed Salem sets are still $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^0_3$ -complete when we endow $\mathbf {F}(\mathbb {R}^d)$ with the Fell topology. A similar result holds also for the Vietoris topology.

We conclude by analyzing the same notions from the point of view of effective descriptive set theory and Type-2 Theory of Effectivity, and show that the complexities remain the same also in the lightface case. In particular, we show that the family of all the closed Salem sets is $\Pi ^0_3$ -complete. We furthermore characterize the Weihrauch degree of the functions computing Hausdorff and Fourier dimension of closed sets.

Abstract prepared by Manlio Valenti.

E-mail:manliovalenti@gmail.com

We investigate computability theoretic and descriptive set theoretic contents of various kinds of analytic choice principles by performing a detailed analysis of the Medvedev lattice of $\Sigma ^1_1$ -closed sets. Among others, we solve an open problem on the Weihrauch degree of the parallelization of the $\Sigma ^1_1$ -choice principle on the integers. Harrington’s unpublished result on a jump hierarchy along a pseudo-well-ordering plays a key role in solving this problem.

In this work we investigate the Weihrauch degree of the problem Decreasing Sequence ( $\mathsf {DS}$ ) of finding an infinite descending sequence through a given ill-founded linear order, which is shared by the problem Bad Sequence ( $\mathsf {BS}$ ) of finding a bad sequence through a given non-well quasi-order. We show that $\mathsf {DS}$ , despite being hard to solve (it has computable inputs with no hyperarithmetic solution), is rather weak in terms of uniform computational strength. To make the latter precise, we introduce the notion of the deterministic part of a Weihrauch degree. We then generalize $\mathsf {DS}$ and $\mathsf {BS}$ by considering $\boldsymbol {\Gamma }$ -presented orders, where $\boldsymbol {\Gamma }$ is a Borel pointclass or $\boldsymbol {\Delta }^1_1$ , $\boldsymbol {\Sigma }^1_1$ , $\boldsymbol {\Pi }^1_1$ . We study the obtained $\mathsf {DS}$ -hierarchy and $\mathsf {BS}$ -hierarchy of problems in comparison with the (effective) Baire hierarchy and show that they do not collapse at any finite level.

We characterize Weihrauch reducibility in $ \operatorname {\mathrm {E-PA^{\omega }}} + \operatorname {\mathrm {QF-AC^{0,0}}}$ and all systems containing it by the provability in a linear variant of the same calculus using modifications of Gödel’s Dialectica interpretation that incorporate ideas from linear logic, nonstandard arithmetic, higher-order computability, and phase semantics.

We show that there is a strong connection between Weihrauch reducibility on one hand, and provability in EL0, the intuitionistic version of RCA0, on the other hand. More precisely, we show that Weihrauch reducibility to the composition of finitely many instances of a theorem is captured by provability in EL0 together with Markov’s principle, and that Weihrauch reducibility is captured by an affine subsystem of EL0 plus Markov’s principle.

This paper is a contribution to the growing investigation of strong reducibilities between ${\rm{\Pi }}_2^1$ statements of second-order arithmetic, viewed as an extension of the traditional analysis of reverse mathematics. We answer several questions of Hirschfeldt and Jockusch [13] about Weihrauch (uniform) and strong computable reductions between various combinatorial principles related to Ramsey’s theorem for pairs. Among other results, we establish that the principle $SRT_2^2$ is not Weihrauch or strongly computably reducible to $D_{ < \infty }^2$, and that COH is not Weihrauch reducible to $SRT_{ < \infty }^2$, or strongly computably reducible to $SRT_2^2$. The last result also extends a prior result of Dzhafarov [9]. We introduce a number of new techniques for controlling the combinatorial and computability-theoretic properties of the problems and solutions we construct in our arguments.