Partition properties of M-ultrafilters and ideals

Abstract

As is well known, the following are equivalent for any uniform ultrafilter U on an uncountable cardinal:(i) U is selective;(ii) U → ;(iii) U → .In §1 of this paper, we consider this result in terms of M-ultrafilters (Definition 1.1), where M is a transitive model of ZFC (Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice). We define the partition properties and for M-ultrafilters (Definition 1.3), and characterize those M-ultrafilters that possess these properties (Theorem 1.5) so that the result mentioned at the beginning is subsumed as the special case that M is V, the universe of all sets. It turns out that the two properties have to be handled separately, and that, besides selectivity, we need to formulate additional conditions (Definition 1.4). The extra conditions become superfluous when M = V because they are then trivially satisfied. One of them is nothing new; it is none other than Kunen's iterability-of-ultrapowers condition.In §2, we obtain characterizations of the partition properties I+ → and I+ → (Definition 2.3) of uniform ideals I on an infinite cardinal κ (Theorem 2.6). This is done by applying the main results of §1 to the canonical -ultrafilter in the Boolean-valued model constructed from the completion of the quotient algebra P(κ)/I. They are related to certain known characterizations of weakly compact and of Ramsey cardinals.Our basic set theory is ZFC. In §1, it has to be supplemented by a new unary predicate symbol M and new nonlogical axioms that make M look like a transitive model of ZFC.