Well-quasi-orders on finite trees and transfinite sequences

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chopra, Alakh Dhruv, Pakhomov, Fedor
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Chopra, Alakh Dhruv
Pakhomov, Fedor
author_facet Chopra, Alakh Dhruv
Pakhomov, Fedor
contents We study the well-quasi-order (wqo) consisting of the set of finite trees with leaf labels coming from an arbitrary wqo $Q$, ordered by tree homomorphisms which respect the order on the labels. This is a variant of the usual Kruskal tree ordering without infima preservation. We calculate the precise maximal order types of this class of wqos as a function of the maximal order type of the labels $Q$. In the process, we sharpen some recent results of Friedman and Weiermann. Furthermore, we show a correspondence with indecomposable transfinite sequences with finite range, over elements of the wqo $Q$, of length less than $ω^ω$. Nash-Williams proved that arbitrary transfinite sequences with finite range are also well-quasi-ordered, but there are no known methods to extract bounds on the maximal order type from the proof. More concrete proofs for sequences of length less than $α$ for some $α< ω^ω$ were given by Erdős and Rado. Using the correspondence, we obtain precise bounds for the entire collection of transfinite sequences with finite range of length less than $ω^ω$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_09830
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Well-quasi-orders on finite trees and transfinite sequences
Chopra, Alakh Dhruv
Pakhomov, Fedor
Logic
Combinatorics
06A07, 03B30, 03F15, 03F35
We study the well-quasi-order (wqo) consisting of the set of finite trees with leaf labels coming from an arbitrary wqo $Q$, ordered by tree homomorphisms which respect the order on the labels. This is a variant of the usual Kruskal tree ordering without infima preservation. We calculate the precise maximal order types of this class of wqos as a function of the maximal order type of the labels $Q$. In the process, we sharpen some recent results of Friedman and Weiermann. Furthermore, we show a correspondence with indecomposable transfinite sequences with finite range, over elements of the wqo $Q$, of length less than $ω^ω$. Nash-Williams proved that arbitrary transfinite sequences with finite range are also well-quasi-ordered, but there are no known methods to extract bounds on the maximal order type from the proof. More concrete proofs for sequences of length less than $α$ for some $α< ω^ω$ were given by Erdős and Rado. Using the correspondence, we obtain precise bounds for the entire collection of transfinite sequences with finite range of length less than $ω^ω$.
title Well-quasi-orders on finite trees and transfinite sequences
topic Logic
Combinatorics
06A07, 03B30, 03F15, 03F35
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09830