The transfinite columns property conjecture

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Let AA be an ω×ω\omega\times\omega matrix with entries from Z\mathbb Z, and assume that AA is partition regular. A matrix has bounded row sums when the sums of the absolute values of the entries in its rows are bounded. Writing the columns as ⟨c⃗i⟩i<ω\langle\vec c_i\rangle_{i<\omega}, AA has the transfinite columns property if there are a countable ordinal μ\mu and a partition ⟨Iσ⟩σ<μ\langle I_\sigma\rangle_{\sigma<\mu} of ω\omega such that

∑i∈I0c⃗i=0⃗\sum_{i\in I_0}\vec c_i=\vec 0

and, for every t∈μ∖{0}t\in\mu\setminus\{0\}, ∑i∈Itc⃗i\sum_{i\in I_t}\vec c_i is a rational linear combination of {c⃗i:i∈⋃j<tIj}\{\vec c_i:i\in\bigcup_{j<t}I_j\}.

Transfinite columns property conjecture. If AA has bounded row sums, then AA has the transfinite columns property.

This is proposed as a weaker substitute for the bounded-row-sums columns property conjecture. The paper notes that matrices can require arbitrarily large countable ordinals in this transfinite condition, and leaves the proposed statement open.

References

Primary source

Ben Barber, Neil Hindman, Imre Leader and Dona Strauss, “Partition regularity without the columns property”, arXiv:1401.1377 (2014).

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