More or Less Uniform Convergence

Abstract: Uniform metastable convergence is a weak form of uniform convergence for a family of sequences. In this paper we explore the way that metastable convergence stratifies into a family of notions indexed by countable ordinals. We give two versions of this stratified family, loosely speaking, they correspond to the model theoretic and proof theoretic perspectives. For the model theoretic version, which we call abstract alpha-uniform convergence, we show that uniform metastable convergence is equivalent to abstract $\alpha$-uniform convergence for some alpha, and that abstract omega-uniform convergence is equivalent to uniformly bounded oscillation of the family of sequences. The proof theoretic version, which we call concrete alpha-uniform convergence, is less canonical (it depends on a choice of ordinal notation), but appears naturally when "proof mining" convergence proofs to obtain quantitative bounds. We show that these hierarchies are strict by exhibiting a family of which is concretely alpha+1-uniformly convergent but not abstractly alpha-uniformly convergent for each alpha<omega_1.