Revisiting classical results on kernels in digraphs

In a digraph, a kernel is a subset of vertices that is both independent and absorbing. Kernels have important applications in combinatorics and outside. Kernels do not always exist and finding sufficient conditions ensuring their existence is a key theoretical challenge. In this work, we revisit and generalize a few classical results of this sort, especially the Sands–Sauer–Woodrow theorem and the Galeana-Sánchez–Neumann-Lara theorem.