Borel subsets of the real line and continuous reducibility

Abstract: We study classes of Borel subsets of the real line $\mathbb{R}$ such as levels of the Borel hierarchy and the class of sets that are reducible to the set $\mathbb{Q}$ of rationals, endowed with the Wadge quasi-order of reducibility with respect to continuous functions on $\mathbb{R}$. Notably, we explore several structural properties of Borel subsets of $\mathbb{R}$ that diverge from those of Polish spaces with dimension zero. Our first main result is on the existence of embeddings of several posets into the restriction of this quasi-order to any Borel class that is strictly above the classes of open and closed sets, for instance the linear order $\omega_1$, its reverse $\omega_1^\star$ and the poset $\mathcal{P}(\omega)/\mathsf{fin}$ of inclusion modulo finite error. As a consequence of its proof, it is shown that there are no complete sets for these classes. We further extend the previous theorem to targets that are reducible to $\mathbb{Q}$. These non-structure results motivate the study of further restrictions of the Wadge quasi-order. In our second main theorem, we introduce a combinatorial property that is shown to characterize those $F_\sigma$ sets that are reducible to $\mathbb{Q}$. This is applied to construct a minimal set below $\mathbb{Q}$ and prove its uniqueness up to Wadge equivalence. We finally prove several results concerning gaps and cardinal characteristics of the Wadge quasi-order and thereby answer questions of Brendle and Geschke.