Type decomposition in NIP theories (Q2302431)

Summary: A first order theory is NIP if all definable families of subsets have finite VC-dimension. We provide a justification for the intuition that NIP structures should be a combination of stable and order-like components. More precisely, we prove that any type in an NIP theory can be decomposed into a stable part (a generically stable partial type) and an order-like quotient.