Nonexistence conjecture for star-n idempotent ultrafilters

Let nN>1n\in\mathbb{N}_{>1}. For ultrafilters on N\mathbb{N}, define the operation n\star_n by extending anb=naba\star_n b=n^a b from N\mathbb{N} to βN\beta\mathbb{N}. An ultrafilter pp is n\star_n-idempotent if pnp=pp\star_n p=p.

Nonexistence conjecture. For any nN>1n\in\mathbb{N}_{>1}, n\star_n-idempotent ultrafilters do not exist.

The conjecture concerns whether the Galvin–Glazer ultrafilter method can be extended to exponential configurations. Such an ultrafilter would yield patterns of the form {x,y,xny}\{x,y,xn^y\} and could provide an ultrafilter proof of the Sahasrabudhe–Schur theorem; the paper's results only restrict where a hypothetical n\star_n-idempotent could lie.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Sayan Goswami and Sourav Kanti Patra, “Exponential Schur and Hindman Theorem in Ramsey Theory”, arXiv:2411.19606 (2024).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2023–2024). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2308.02807.

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