Relative to a family , an infinite reservoir accepts a finite stem when its entire Ellentuck topology neighbourhood lies in . It rejects when no infinite refinement accepts it. Every reservoir has a refinement deciding a prescribed stem, and both outcomes are hereditary under further infinite thinning. These definitions turn open-set homogeneity into a fusion construction.
Baire property in the Ellentuck topology Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A subset of the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers has this property when it differs from an Ellentuck topology open set by a meagre set in the same topology. By the complete-Ramsey characterization, these are precisely the completely Ramsey sets. Using meagreness from a different topology changes the definition.
In the Ellentuck topology, suppose every open set is completely Ramsey and every meagre set is completely Ramsey-null. If is contained in a meagre set for some open , first refine a basic neighbourhood without changing its stem to avoid that exceptional set, and then refine again to be homogeneous for . The resulting neighbourhood is homogeneous for . Sets with such an open representative form a sigma-algebra: countable unions collect the meagre errors, and complements replace by its interior, differing only on the nowhere-dense boundary of . This proves that all star-Borel sets are completely Ramsey.
Completely Ramsey-null set Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A set is completely Ramsey-null when every Ellentuck topology neighborhood has a refinement disjoint from , with the same finite stem . Assuming open Ellentuck sets are completely Ramsey, every star-nowhere dense set is completely Ramsey-null: apply the open-set property to the dense complement of its closure. The Ellentuck meagre-set fusion lemma shows that countable unions retain this avoidance property.
Completely Ramsey set Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-07
A set is completely Ramsey if every basic Ellentuck topology neighborhood admits an infinite with or . Keeping the finite stem makes this stronger than being a Ramsey set of infinite subsets.
For an infinite coinfinite set , let in the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers. This cone is a nonempty clopen set in the Ellentuck topology, because it is the basic neighbourhood , and any has a finite initial segment containing a point outside and hence a basic neighbourhood disjoint from .
The cone is a closed set with empty interior in the ordinary topology on infinite subsets: membership of a point outside witnesses its complement as an open set, while every ordinary finite-stem neighbourhood can be extended by an arbitrarily large point outside . Thus is an ordinary nowhere dense set, but it is neither ordinary open nor Ellentuck nowhere dense. It provides both distinctions between these two topologies.
In the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers, the families are clopen sets in the ordinary topology on infinite subsets and thus in the finer Ellentuck topology. Their union is . Every basic Ellentuck topology neighborhood of contains for some sufficiently large , so this union is not a closed set.
Every Borel set for the Ellentuck topology is completely Ramsey. First, an acceptance-and-rejection fusion makes every open set homogeneous after thinning the infinite reservoir while keeping its finite stem. Every nowhere-dense set is consequently completely Ramsey-null, and a fusion handling all subsets of each finite selected prefix shows that countable unions of such null sets remain null. Finally, sets differing from an open set by a meagre set form a sigma-algebra containing the open sets. Thus every Borel set has the required stem-preserving homogeneous refinement.
Countably many completely Ramsey-null sets can be avoided simultaneously in a stem-preserving Ellentuck topology refinement. Select an increasing sequence with nested infinite remaining tails. At stage , thin the tail to avoid the th set for every stem , where ranges over all subsets of the first selected points. There are only finitely many such stems. Any infinite subset of the final selected sequence uses some such before stage and has all remaining points in the thinned tail. Thus it avoids every forbidden set. This explains why an argument checking only the full selected prefix is insufficient.
A finite stem is a finite initial segment of an infinite subset of . The associated neighbourhood in the ordinary topology on infinite subsets is . For an infinite tail above , the neighbourhood is basic in the Ellentuck topology. Finite stems allow a fusion argument to fix initial choices while successively thinning the remaining infinite tail.
Fusion proof for open Ellentuck sets Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-07
Every open set in the Ellentuck topology is a completely Ramsey set. Fix a finite stem . An infinite tail accepts a finite extension if its entire basic neighborhood lies in the open set; it rejects if no infinite subtail accepts it. Decisions persist under thinning. A fusion chooses an infinite set deciding every finite extension. For any rejected extension, only finitely many possible next elements can yield accepted extensions, since infinitely many would themselves provide an accepting tail. A second thinning therefore makes all finite extensions rejected. Openness then rules out any point of the set in the resulting neighborhood.
The whole space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers is a meagre set in the Ramsey cone topology. For , the closure is , which has empty interior: every infinite ground set can be thinned to omit . Thus all are nowhere dense, while their countable union is the whole space. In contrast, the whole space is not meagre in either the Ellentuck topology or the ordinary topology on infinite subsets.
The cone on the even integers is nonempty and Ellentuck topology open, while it is closed and nowhere dense in the ordinary topology on infinite subsets. Choose a finite-symmetric-difference parity colouring on that cone and take one colour class. The class is still ordinarily nowhere dense because its closure lies in the cone, but every stem-free refinement inside the cone meets both colours. Hence it is not completely Ramsey.
Identify with the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers. A family has an infinite homogeneous set for a colouring if some infinite satisfies
This is the Ramsey family in the homogeneous-cone sense formulation. The relative Ramsey set of infinite subsets formulation asks for such an inside every prescribed infinite ground set. We prove the stronger completely Ramsey assertion, keeping an arbitrary finite stem fixed.
For a finite stem and an infinite tail with (taking ), write
These neighbourhoods generate the Ellentuck topology, or star topology. A star-Borel set belongs to the sigma-algebra generated by the open sets of this topology. It is completely Ramsey if every has an infinite with or . Taking gives both preceding Ramsey formulations.
We first prove the fusion proof for open Ellentuck sets. Fix a star-open set and a starting neighbourhood . A reservoir above a finite extension accepts when . It rejects when no infinite subreservoir accepts it. Every infinite reservoir has a refinement deciding : if an accepting subreservoir exists choose one, and otherwise the reservoir already rejects. Both acceptance and rejection persist under further infinite thinning. These are acceptance and rejection of finite stems.
First refine to decide the empty extension. Choose from the refined reservoir and thin the remaining tail to decide every subset of . After choosing , thin the unused infinite tail to decide every subset of this finite prefix before choosing . Only finitely many decisions occur at each stage. Let . For each finite , its tail
(with ) is contained in the reservoir chosen when the largest point of was selected. Thus decides . This is deciding all finite stems by fusion.
If accepts the empty extension, and we are done. Otherwise it rejects it. Call a finite accepted or rejected according to the decision of . For each rejected , the set
is finite. Indeed, if were infinite, every would have a least element with accepted, and its remaining tail lies in . Hence for every such , making an accepting subreservoir for , a contradiction. This proves the finitely many accepting extensions of a rejected stem fact.
Build by choosing each new point outside all the finitely many sets for subsets of the already selected prefix. Begin with the rejected empty extension. Inductively every finite subset of the new prefix is rejected: the old subsets stay rejected, and each new subset is a rejected extended by a point outside , whose decision must therefore be rejection. Consequently every finite is rejected.
If a point belonged to , star-openness would give a basic neighbourhood containing it. Extend along the increasing enumeration of , if necessary, until its stem is for a finite . The infinite tail of above that stem then provides an accepting subreservoir for , contradicting rejection. Therefore . We have proved that every star-open set is completely Ramsey.
A family is completely Ramsey-null when every has a stem-preserving refinement disjoint from . Every star-nowhere dense set has this property. Apply the open-set result to the dense open complement of its star-closure. The disjoint alternative would put an entire basic neighbourhood inside a closure with empty interior, which is impossible. The other alternative gives the required avoidance.
We also need the full Ellentuck meagre-set fusion lemma, not a diagonal argument checking only one prefix. Let be completely Ramsey-null, and start inside . At stage , suppose have been chosen. Refine the remaining infinite tail successively so that
The null property permits each refinement with its stem unchanged; previous avoidance survives thinning. There are finitely many at this stage. Choose and continue above it. Let .
For any infinite and any fixed , put . Its remaining points form an infinite subset of , so and hence . This works for every , proving
Thus countable unions of completely Ramsey-null sets are null. Subsets of null sets are null as well. In particular every star-meagre set, being a countable union of star-nowhere-dense sets, is completely Ramsey-null.
Finally let consist of families such that is contained in a star-meagre set for some star-open . This is the Baire property in the Ellentuck topology. We verify that it forms a sigma-algebra. Open sets belong with empty error. For a countable union, use ; its error is contained in the countable union of the meagre errors. For complements, replace by its interior. The discrepancy is
a closed nowhere-dense set: every open set meeting also meets , so none can lie wholly in this boundary. Adding it to the original meagre error handles complementation. Consequently every star-Borel set belongs to .
For such an , start with any . First apply null avoidance to its meagre error to find on which agrees with . Then apply open-set homogeneity to refine it to wholly inside or outside , and therefore wholly inside or outside . This is the Baire-property reduction for completely Ramsey families. We conclude
All closures, interiors, openness and meagreness in this argument refer to the star topology; replacing it midway by the ordinary finite-prefix topology would not justify the null-avoidance step.
Write for the infinite subsets of an infinite . A Ramsey set of infinite subsets is a family such that each infinite ground set has an infinite subset with
The convention asking only for one such homogeneous cone is weaker; the proof below establishes the displayed property and, in fact, the stronger completely Ramsey set property.
For a finite stem and an infinite reservoir lying above every element of , put
These sets form the basic open neighbourhoods of the Ellentuck topology, or star topology. Here is an initial segment of every member of . A star-Borel set means a member of the sigma-algebra generated by these open sets. A family is completely Ramsey if every has a homogeneous refinement with infinite and the same stem . We prove this for every star-Borel set, beginning with open sets.
Fix a star-open family and a basic neighbourhood . An infinite reservoir above a finite stem accepts if . It rejects if no infinite subset of accepts . A reservoir decides if it accepts or rejects it. Any reservoir has a refinement deciding a prescribed stem: take an accepting refinement if there is one, and otherwise the current reservoir rejects. Both kinds of decision persist under infinite thinning.
First refine to decide . If the decision is acceptance, the required homogeneous neighbourhood has already been found. Suppose it is rejection. We use deciding all finite stems by fusion to select
from nested infinite reservoirs. After selecting , successively thin the remaining reservoir to decide every stem with . There are only finitely many such , so every stage can be completed. Choose from that thinned reservoir and repeat. Let . For every finite , the tail
decides ; for , use all of . Indeed, the stem was decided at the stage when its largest point was selected, and its final tail is a subset of the reservoir retained at that stage. The empty stem remains rejected by the initial decision.
The crucial finite-obstruction fact is that a rejected stem has only finitely many accepting one-point extensions. More precisely, suppose rejects . If infinitely many had accepting , collect those into an infinite . Any has a least point , and its remaining tail lies in . Acceptance at would then imply . Thus would accept , contradicting rejection. This proves the finitely many accepting extensions of a rejected stem assertion with the reservoirs specified.
Thin a second time. Having selected a finite prefix of , maintain that every stem with a subset of that prefix is rejected relative to its tail in . Each such stem has finitely many forbidden next points leading to acceptance. Choose the next point of above the prefix and outside the union of these finitely many finite forbidden sets. The deciding property of then makes every newly created stem rejected. Starting with the rejected empty extension gives an infinite all of whose finite extensions of are rejected.
We claim . Otherwise take . Star-openness supplies a basic neighbourhood inside containing . Extend its finite stem along until it contains ; the new stem has the form for a finite initial segment of . The remaining infinite tail of is a subset of and accepts that stem, contradicting rejection. This proves the fusion proof for open Ellentuck sets: every star-open set is completely Ramsey.
Next call completely Ramsey-null if every has a same-stem refinement disjoint from . Every star-nowhere dense set is completely Ramsey-null. Indeed, the complement of its star-closure is star-open and dense. Apply the just-proved open-set result inside . The homogeneous alternative disjoint from would be a nonempty open set contained in the closure of a nowhere-dense set, which is impossible. Hence some lies entirely in and avoids .
Countable unions of completely Ramsey-null sets are again completely Ramsey-null. Here is the full Ellentuck meagre-set fusion lemma. Given and , construct selected prefixes and nested unused infinite reservoirs. At stage , refine the reservoir, still lying above , to arrange
Each constraint can be imposed by complete Ramsey-nullness, with all earlier constraints preserved by thinning; there are finitely many constraints. Choose and retain the tail above it for the next stage. Start with and the reservoir .
Let . If and is fixed, take any and put . Every remaining point of lies in , so and . Therefore
This construction handles all subsets of a selected prefix, not merely the full prefix: members of may skip arbitrarily many selected points. Since a meagre set is a countable union of nowhere-dense sets, every star-meagre set is completely Ramsey-null.
It remains to pass from star-open sets to star-Borel sets. Let consist of the families expressible as
where is star-open and is star-meagre. We verify directly that is a sigma-algebra. It contains every open set. Countable unions remain in , because
and a countable union of meagre sets is meagre. For complements, replace by the open set . The omitted part is , the boundary of the open set , which is closed and nowhere dense: a nonempty open subset of must meet , so it cannot lie in this boundary. Thus
a meagre set. Subsets of meagre sets are meagre as well, since taking a subset preserves nowhere denseness. These observations prove the claimed sigma-algebra property. Hence every star-Borel set belongs to .
Finally, for and any , first use complete Ramsey-nullness to obtain avoiding . On that neighbourhood and coincide. Apply the open-set result to within to get a homogeneous . Therefore
Taking gives the requested homogeneous infinite-subset cone inside any given infinite ground set. Every closure, interior, open set and meagreness used in this proof refers to the Ellentuck topology; substituting the coarser ordinary topology at an intermediate step would change the assertion.
Write for the space of infinite subsets of the natural numbers, with each subset identified with its increasing enumeration. In the homogeneous-cone convention, a family is a Ramsey family in the homogeneous-cone sense when some infinite satisfies
The stronger Ramsey set of infinite subsets convention asks for such an infinite inside every given infinite ground set . We will prove the open-set assertion in this stronger form, and our Ramsey-but-not-completely-Ramsey example will satisfy it as well. Thus the distinction in conventions does not affect any of the conclusions below.
For a non-Ramsey example, declare if their symmetric difference is finite, and choose a representative from each equivalence class using the axiom of choice. Set
for the representative of the class of . Removing one point reverses this colour, because its symmetric difference with changes by exactly one point. Consequently every cone contains the oppositely coloured sets and . Either colour class of this finite-symmetric-difference parity colouring is not a Ramsey family in the homogeneous-cone sense. No definability is claimed for the representative selection.
The ordinary topology on infinite subsets, denoted , has basic cylinders , where is a finite stem of the increasing enumeration. Let be a -open family and fix an arbitrary infinite ground set . We give a complete fusion proof of a homogeneous cone inside .
Use the convention . For finite and an infinite reservoir above , say that accepts if , where
Say that rejects if no infinite subset of accepts . There is always a refinement deciding : choose an accepting subreservoir if one exists, and otherwise retain , which rejects. Both decisions persist under further thinning.
A first fusion produces an infinite deciding every finite on its tail . First decide the empty stem. Choose the first point, and thin the remaining reservoir successively to decide every subset of the selected prefix. Repeat after choosing each new point. There are finitely many subsets to decide at each stage. The diagonal sequence of chosen points has the required property, since its tail after the largest point of any stem lies in the reservoir where that stem was decided. The empty-stem decision persists too. This is deciding all finite stems by fusion.
If accepts the empty stem, and we are done. Suppose it rejects. For a rejected finite , only finitely many can have accepting . Otherwise let be their infinite set. Every infinite starts with some such , and its remaining tail lies in , so . Then accepts , contradicting rejection. This proves finitely many accepting extensions of a rejected stem.
A second fusion constructs whose every finite subset is rejected. If a finite prefix of chosen points has been selected, all its subsets are rejected by induction. Avoid the union of their finitely many accepting successor sets when choosing the next point. The first fusion already decides every successor, so every new subset is rejected. An infinite reservoir remains after each finite exclusion.
If some belonged to , openness would give an initial segment with . Its reservoir would then accept , contradicting the second fusion. Therefore . In either case we have a homogeneous cone inside the arbitrary ground set . Every -open family is a Ramsey set of infinite subsets, under both conventions.
A completely Ramsey set requires more: for every finite and infinite reservoir above , there is an infinite such that
The finite stem must be kept fixed. These are the basic neighbourhoods of the Ellentuck topology, also called the star topology.
Let be the even positive integers, and construct the finite-symmetric-difference parity colouring on . Define
For any infinite ground set , the set is still infinite and its whole cone misses . Thus is a Ramsey set of infinite subsets even in the stronger convention. But inside , every infinite refinement gives the two sets and of opposite colours. Hence no such refinement is homogeneous. The family is Ramsey but not completely Ramsey. The stem-supported Ramsey family need not be completely Ramsey construction explains this example: forgetting the stem is precisely what loses the obstruction.
Finally take . It is nonempty and star-open, since it equals . It is -closed: if an infinite set contains an odd integer, an initial segment witnessing that integer has a cylinder disjoint from . Its -interior is empty: after any finite stem of even integers, append an arbitrarily large odd integer and then infinitely many further points. Thus
This is the cone on an infinite coinfinite ground set. Choose its subset . Since , is also -nowhere dense. Nevertheless every with infinite contains both and , of opposite colours. Hence is not completely Ramsey. We have proved explicitly that ordinarily nowhere-dense sets need not be completely Ramsey; the topology in the nowhere-dense hypothesis cannot be silently changed to the star topology.
Let
This is the dense countable family of cofinite infinite subsets. Every ordinary basic open set contains the cofinite set . Thus is -dense: its ordinary closure is the whole space, so it is not -nowhere dense.
It is -closed. Indeed, for an infinite noncofinite , the Ellentuck topology neighbourhood contains only noncofinite sets, because every subset of misses the infinite complement of . This neighbourhood is disjoint from .
Finally every nonempty basic -open set contains a smaller basic -open set disjoint from : enumerate and let consist of every second point. Then is infinite, and contains no cofinite set. In particular has empty -interior. As it is already -closed, its -closure has empty -interior, proving that it is -nowhere dense.
The same cone on an infinite coinfinite ground set works:
It is -closed: a set outside has an odd point, and the ordinary neighbourhood given by its initial segment through that point remains outside . Its -interior is empty, since every ordinary basic open set admits an extension having an odd point. Hence its ordinary closure equals itself and has empty interior, proving that it is a -nowhere dense set.
In the Ellentuck topology, however, is itself a nonempty open set. Its -closure therefore has nonempty -interior, so is not -nowhere dense.
Take the cone on an infinite coinfinite ground set
It is -open because is a basic open set of the Ellentuck topology. It is not -open: if , every ordinary basic neighbourhood of contains an infinite extension of having an odd point larger than . That extension is outside . Therefore no point of has an ordinary open neighbourhood contained in .
Write for the set of all infinite subsets of . A family is a Ramsey family in the homogeneous-cone sense if there is an infinite such that either or . Thus membership in is constant on an infinite homogeneous cone. We will prove the stronger version for open families: such a cone exists inside every prescribed infinite ground set, as in the definition of a Ramsey set of infinite subsets.
The symbols in the question refer to the ordinary topology on infinite subsets and the Ellentuck topology . For a finite set , let
These sets form a topological basis for , equivalently the subspace topology inherited from the product topology on . For an infinite with , the sets
form a topological basis for ; take . In particular , so is finer than .
For a non-Ramsey example use the finite-symmetric-difference parity colouring. On , define the equivalence relation if their symmetric difference is finite. By the axiom of choice, select a representative in every equivalence class. Give the colour
where is its class representative. Deleting one point stays in the same class and toggles the parity. Thus for every infinite , the sets and are both in but have opposite colours. Either colour class, regarded as a family , is therefore not Ramsey.
Now let be -open. We prove that for every infinite there is an infinite with or . The proof uses acceptance and rejection of finite stems, which we define explicitly. For a finite stem and an infinite tail above , say that accepts if , and rejects if no infinite subset of accepts . Both properties persist on taking infinite subsets. Every tail has an infinite subset that decides : take an accepting subset if one exists, and otherwise it already rejects .
First thin to decide the empty stem. Then construct and nested infinite tails. At step , choose from the current tail, discard its points at most , and successively thin what remains to decide every stem . There are only finitely many such stems, so an infinite tail remains. Let and write . For every finite , the tail decides , since it lies in the tail obtained at the stage when the largest point of was selected. The empty stem is also decided. This is deciding all finite stems by fusion.
If accepts the empty stem, then , as required. Otherwise rejects it. We need the finitely many accepting extensions of a rejected stem observation. Suppose a tail rejects . Only finitely many can have accepting . Indeed, if infinitely many such formed a set , every member of would have some first new point and all later points in , hence would lie in . This would make an accepting subset of , contradicting rejection.
Choose in recursively so that for every finite , the tail rejects . The empty stem satisfies this initially. At the next step, each of the finitely many previous stems has only finitely many accepting one-point extensions by the observation. Choose larger than all previous points and outside all those finite exceptional sets. The first fusion ensured that the tail for every new stem decides it; since it does not accept it, it rejects it. This maintains the recursion.
Put . If some belonged to , ordinary openness would give a finite initial segment of with . In particular . But is an infinite subset of , which rejects , a contradiction. Hence . We have proved