Big Ramsey degrees using parameter spaces

Abstract

We show that the universal homogeneous partial order has finite big Ramsey degrees and discuss several corollaries. Our proof relies on parameter spaces and the Carlson–Simpson theorem rather than on (a strengthening of) the Halpern–Läuchli theorem and the Milliken tree theorem, which are typically used to bound big Ramsey degrees in the existing literature (originating from the work of Laver and Milliken).

This new technique has many additional applications. We show that the homogeneous universal triangle-free graph has finite big Ramsey degrees, providing a short proof of a recent result by Dobrinen. Moreover, generalizing an indivisibility (vertex partition) result of Nguyen van Thé and Sauer, we give an upper bound on big Ramsey degrees of metric spaces with finitely many distances. This leads to a new combinatorial argument for the oscillation stability of the Urysohn Sphere.