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No-sinks cost offsets give a weak global entropy
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice. Let be the decorated cost of Decorated finite-chain costs with catalysts, and assume the no-sinks condition
for every type pair. Let be the real difference space of Cost-zero type offsets and their difference space. Then there is an additive extensive offset such that
If every admitted cross-type transition from to satisfies the calibrated cost inequality of Catalyst-chain cost characterizes cross-type transitions, then is nondecreasing across every such transition. Only this weak inequality is asserted; no-gap equalities and strict extensions are not concluded.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The no-sinks condition, A1–A6 for cross-type transitions, the finite-chain costs, and the Axiom of Choice.
The Axiom of Choice: adopt AC for the Hahn–Banach dominated-extension and basis-extension steps in the vector-space supplier.
Cost-zero type offsets and their difference space and The cost-zero offset construction is a real vector space: is a real vector space of formal type differences, with composition additive and positive scaling homogeneous.
Algebraic properties of decorated-chain costs: , is translation-invariant, positively homogeneous and subadditive, finite reverse witnesses bound forward costs, and costs have no negative cycles.
Infinite-valued no-sinks Hahn–Banach sandwich and conditional offsets: under AC, a sublinear with and symmetric finite domain admits a linear with .
Catalyst-chain cost characterizes cross-type transitions: every admitted transition satisfies .
Proof
Given: [A1], [F1]–[F4], and the no-sinks condition.
If , no-sinks gives a finite reverse witness of some real cost . Concatenating it with any forward witness makes a closed chain, so [F2] gives forward cost at least . Thus whenever it is finite; all cost values are in .
For a pair class , define . Suppose via , so . Put . Since , the triangle inequality gives and ; the costs have no by step 1.1, so these inequalities imply equality. Catalyst invariance from [F2] gives and . Therefore is independent of the pair representative.
The identity gives . Homogeneity of gives for , and its product subadditivity gives . The no-sinks condition says exactly when . By step 1.1, has no value.
Apply [F3] to and . It gives a real-linear with for all . Put , where is the empty unit type. Since , is additive. Since (the unit type satisfies ), for . Also , so applying the sandwich to this pair gives the displayed two-sided cost bound.
For an admitted transition, [F4] gives , while step 3.1 gives . Subtracting the latter from the former yields Thus the offset entropy is nondecreasing across every admitted transition.
Remarks
The no-sinks condition is an explicit hypothesis about cross-type reachability. AC is used by Infinite-valued no-sinks Hahn–Banach sandwich and conditional offsets and is carried here. The result does not assert a no-gap condition, a unique offset, or an exact entropy principle for all transitions.
Depends on
The Axiom of Choice
Forward-sector hypotheses for a simple state domain
Decorated finite-chain costs with catalysts
Algebraic properties of decorated-chain costs
Cost-zero type offsets and their difference space
The cost-zero offset construction is a real vector space
Catalyst-chain cost characterizes cross-type transitions
Infinite-valued no-sinks Hahn–Banach sandwich and conditional offsets