The deviation, density, and depth of partially ordered sets

Let P be a poset, and let γ be a linear order type with |γ| ≥ 3. The γ-deviation of P, denoted by γ-dev P, is defined inductively as follows: (1) γ-dev P=0, if P contains no chain of order type γ; (2) γ-dev P = , if γ-dev P and each chain C of type γ in P contains elements a and b such that a<b and a, b] as an interval of P has γ-deviation <. There may be no ordinal such that γ-dev P = ; i.e., γ-dev P does not exist. A chain is γ-dense if each of its intervals contains a chain of order type γ. If P contains a γ-dense chain, then γ-dev P fails to exist. If either (1) P is linearly ordered or (2) a chain of order type γ does not contain a dense interval, then the converse holds. For an ordinal ξ, a special set S(ξ) is used to study ω_ξ-deviation. The depth of P, denoted by δ(P) is the least ordinal β that does not embed in P^*. Then the following statements are equivalent: (1) ω_ξ-dev P does not exist; (2) S(ξ) embeds in P; and (3) P has a subset Q of cardinality _ξ such that δ(Q^*) = ω_{ξ + 1}. Also ω_ξ-dev P = <ω_{ξ + 1} if and only if |δ(P^*)|_ξ; if these equivalent conditions hold, then ω^β_ξ < δ(P^*) ≤ ω ^{+ 1}_ξ for all β < . Applications are made to the study of chains of submodules of a module over an associative ring.