Large Cardinal Properties Research Articles

Some Open Problems in Mutual Stationarity Involving Inner Model Theory: A Commentary

We discuss some of the relationships between the notion of "mutual stationarity" of Foreman and Magidor and measurability in inner models. The general thrust of these is that very general mutual stationarity properties on small cardinals, such as the ℵns, is a large cardinal property. A number of open problems, theorems, and conjectures are stated.

Stationary reflection in extender models

Working in L(E), we examine which large cardinal properties ofimply that all stationary subsets of cof(<�) � + reflect.

On unfoldable cardinals, ?-closed cardinals, and the beginning of the inner model hierarchy

Let κ be a cardinal, and let Hκ be the class of sets of hereditary cardinality less than κ ; let τ (κ) > κ be the height of the smallest transitive admissible set containing every element of {κ}∪Hκ. We show that a ZFC-definable notion of long unfoldability, a generalisation of weak compactness, implies in the core model K, that the mouse order restricted to Hκ is as long as τ. (It is known that some weak large cardinal property is necessary for the latter to hold.) In other terms we delimit its strength as follows: TheoremCon(ZFC+ω2-Π 11-Determinacy) ⇒ ⇒Con(ZFC+V=K+∃ a long unfoldable cardinal ⇒ ⇒Con(ZFC+∀X(X# exists) + ‘‘\(\forall D \subseteq \omega_1 D\) is universally Baire ⇔ ∃r∈R(D∈L(r)))’’, and this is set-generically absolute). We isolate a notion of ω-closed cardinal which is weaker than an ω1-Erd\ os cardinal, and show that this bounds the first long unfoldable: Theorem Let κ be ω -closed. Then there is a long unfoldable l<κ.

Square in Core Models

AbstractWe prove that in all Mitchell-Steel core models, □k holds for all k. (See Theorem 2.) From this we obtain new consistency strength lower bounds for the failure of □k if k is either singular and countably closed, weakly compact, or measurable. (Corollaries 5, 8, and 9.) Jensen introduced a large cardinal property that we call subcompactness; it lies between superstrength and supercompactness in the large cardinal hierarchy. We prove that in all Jensen core models, □k holds iff k is not subcompact. (See Theorem 15; the only if direction is essentially due to Jensen.)

Large Cardinals and Ramifiability for Directed Sets

The notion of ramifiability (or tree-property), usually applied to cardinals, can be extended to directed sets and is put in relation here with familiar large cardinal properties.

On tightness and depth in superatomic Boolean algebras

We introduce a large cardinal property which is consistent with L and show that for every superatomic Boolean algebra B and every cardinal λ with the large cardinal property, if tightness+(B) ≥ λ+, then depth(B) ≥ λ. This improves a theorem of Dow and Monk. In [DM, Theorem C], Dow and Monk have shown that if λ is a Ramsey cardinal (see [J, p.328]), then every superatomic Boolean algebra with tightness at least λ has depth at least λ. Recall that a Boolean algebra B is superatomic iff every homomorphic image of B is atomic. The depth of B is the supremum of all cardinals λ such that there is a sequence (bα : α < λ) in B with bβ < bα for all α < β < λ (a well-ordered chain of length λ). Then depth of B is the first cardinal λ such that there is no well-ordered chain of length λ in B. The tightness of B is the supremum of all cardinals λ such that B has a free sequence of length λ, where a sequence (bα : α < λ) is called free provided that if Γ and ∆ are finite subsets of λ such that α < β for all α ∈ Γ and β ∈ ∆, then ⋂

Implications between strong large cardinal axioms

The rank-into-rank and stronger large cardinal axioms assert the existence of certain elementary embeddings. By the preservation of the large cardinal properties of the embeddings under certain operations, strong implications between various of these axioms are derived.

Narrow coverings of ω-ary product spaces

Results of Sierpiński and others have shown that certain finite-dimensional product sets can be written as unions of subsets, each of which is ‘narrow’ in a corresponding direction; that is, each line in that direction intersects the subset in a small set. For example, if the set ω × ω is partitioned into two pieces along the diagonal, then one piece meets every horizontal line in a finite set, and the other piece meets each vertical line in a finite set. Such partitions or coverings can exist only when the sets forming the product are of limited size.This paper considers such coverings for products of infinitely many sets (usually a product of ω copies of the same cardinal κ). In this case, a covering of the product by narrow sets, one for each coordinate direction, will exist no matter how large the factor sets are. But if one restricts the sets used in the covering (for instance, requiring them to be Borel in a product topology), then the existence of narrow coverings is related to a number of large cardinal properties: partition cardinals, the free subset problem, nonregular ultrafilters, and so on.One result given here is a relative consistency proof for a hypothesis used by S. Mrówka to produce a counterexample in the dimension theory of metric spaces.

Large normal ideals concentrating on a fixed small cardinality

The property on the filter in Definition 1, a kind of large cardinal property, suffices for the proof in Liu Shelah [LiSh484] and is proved consistent as required there (see Conclusion 6). A natural property which looks better, not only is not obtained here, but is shown to be false (in Claim 7). On earlier related theorems see Gitik Shelah [GiSh310]. On such games see e.g. [Je], [Sh-b], [Sh-f].

Fine structure for tame inner models

In this paper, we solve the strong uniqueness problem posed in [St2]. That is, we extend the full fine structure theory of [MiSt] to backgrounded models all of whose levels are tame (defined in [St2] and below). As a consequence, more powerful large cardinal properties reflect to fine structural inner models. For example, we get the following extension to [MiSt, Theorem 11.3] and [St2, Theorem 0.3].Suppose that there is a strong cardinal that is a limit of Woodin cardinals. Then there is a good extender sequence such that(1) every level of is a sound, tame mouse, and(2) ⊨ “There is a strong cardinal that is a limit of Woodin cardinals”.Recall that satisfies GCH if all its levels are sound. Another consequence of our work is the following covering property, an extension to [St1, Theorem 1.4] and [St3, Theorem 1.10].Suppose that fi is a normal measure on Ω and that all premice are tame. Then Kc, the background certified core model, exists and is a premouse of height Ω. Moreover, for μ-almost every α &lt; Ω.Ideas similar to those introduced here allow us to extend the fine structure theory of [Sch] to the level of tame mice. The details of this extension shall appear elsewhere. From the extension of [Sch] and Theorem 0.2, new relative consistency results follow. For example, we have the following application.If there is a cardinal κ such that κ is κ+-strongly compact, then there is a premouse that is not tame.

Weakly normal closures of filters on Pκλ

The study of filters on Pκλ started by Jech [5] as a natural generalization of that of filters on an uncountable regular cardinal κ. Several notions including weak normality have been generalized. However, there are two versions proposed as weak normality for filters on Pκλ. One is due to Abe [1] as a straightforward generalization of weak normality for filters on κ due to Kanamori [6] and the other is due to Mignone [8]. While Mignone's version is weaker than normality, Kanamori-Abe's version is not in general. In fact, Abe [2] has proved, generalizing Kanamori [6], that a filter is weakly normal in the sense of Abe iff it is weakly normal in the sense of Mignone and there exists no disjoint family of cfλ-many positive sets. Therefore Kanamori-Abe's version is essentially a large cardinal property and Mignone's version seems to be the most natural formulation of “weak” normality.In this paper, we study weak normality in the sense of Mignone. In [8], Mignone studies weak normality of canonically defined filters. We complement his chart and try to find the weakly normal closures of these filters (i.e., the minimal weakly normal filters extending them). Therefore our result is a natural refinement of Carr [4].It is now well known that combinatorics on Pκλ is not a naive generalization of that on κ. For example, Menas [7] showed that stationarity on Pκλ can be characterized by 2-dimensional regressive functions, but not by 1-dimensional ones when λ is strictly larger than κ. We show in terms of weak normality that combinatorics on Pκλ vary drastically with respect to cfλ.

Combinatorics on large cardinals

Our framework is ZFC, and we view cardinals as initial ordinals. Baumgartner ([Bal] and [Ba2]) studied properties of large cardinals by considering these properties as properties of normal ideals and not as properties of cardinals alone. In this paper we study these combinatorial properties by defining operations which take as input one or more ideals and give as output an ideal associated with a large cardinal property. We consider four operations T, P, S and C on ideals of a regular cardinal κ, and study the structure of the collection of subsets they give, and the relationships between them.The operation T is defined using combinatorial properties based on trees 〈X, &lt;T〉 on subsets X ⊆ κ (where α &lt;T β → α &lt; β). Given an ideal I, consider the property *: “every tree on κ with every branching set in I has a branch of size κ” (where a branching set is a maximal set with the same set of &lt;T-predecessors, and a chain is a maximal &lt;T-linearly ordered set; for definitions see §2). Now consider the collection T(I) of all subsets of κ that do not satisfy * (see Definition 2.2 and the introduction to §5). The operation T provides us with the large cardinal property (whether κ ∈ T(I) or not) and it also provides us with the ideal associated with this large cardinal property (namely T(I)); in general, we obtain different notions depending on the ideal I.

Properties of subtle cardinals

Subtle cardinals were first introduced in a paper by Jensen and Kunen [JK]. They show that ifκis subtle then ◇κholds. Subtle cardinals also play an important role in [B1], where Baumgartner proposed that certain large cardinal properties should be considered as properties of their associated normal ideals. He shows that in the case of ineffables, the ideals are particularly useful, as can be seen by the following theorem,κis ineffable if and only ifκis subtle andΠ½-indescribableandthe subtle andΠ½-indescribable ideals cohere, i.e. they generate a proper, normal ideal (which in fact turns out to be the ineffable ideal).In this paper we examine properties of subtle cardinals and consider methods of forcing that destroy the property of subtlety while maintaining other properties. The following is a list of results.1) We relativize the following two facts about subtle cardinals:i) ifκisn-subtle then {α&lt;κ:αis notn-subtle} isn-subtle, andii) ifκis (n+ 1)-subtle then {α&lt;κ:αisn-subtle} is in the (n+ 1)-subtle filter to subsets ofκ:i′) ifAis ann-subtle subset ofκthen {α ϵ A:A∩αis notn-subtle} isn-subtle, andii′) ifAis an (n+ 1)-subtle subset ofκthen {α ϵ A:A∩αisn-subtle} is (n+ 1)-subtle.2) We show that although a stationary limit of subtles is subtle, a subtle limit of subtles is not necessarily 2-subtle.3) In §3 we use the technique of forcing to turn a subtle cardinal into aκ-Mahlo cardinal that is no longer subtle.4) In §4 we extend the results of §3 by showing how to turn an (n+ 1)-subtle cardinal into ann-subtle cardinal that is no longer (n+ 1)-subtle.

Pκλ combinatorics II: The RK ordering beneath a supercompact measure

AbstractWe characterize some large cardinal properties, such as μ-measurability and P2(κ)-measurability, in terms of ultrafilters, and then explore the Rudin-Keisler (RK) relations between these ultrafilters and supercompact measures on Pκ(2κ). This leads to the characterization of 2κ-supercompactness in terms of a measure on measure sequences, and also to the study of a certain natural subset, Fullκ, of Pκ(2κ) whose elements code measures on cardinals less than κ. The hypothesis that Fullκ is stationary (a weaker assumption than 2κ-supercompactness) is equivalent to a higher order Löwenheim-Skolem property, and settles a question about directed versus chain-type unions on Pκλ.

Between strong and superstrong

Definition. A cardinal κ is strong iff for every x there is an elementary embedding j:V → M with critical point κ such that x ∈ M.κ is superstrong iff ∃j:V → M with critical point κ such that Vj(κ) ∈ M.These definitions are natural weakenings of supercompactness and hugeness respectively and display some of the same relations. For example, if κ is superstrong then Vκ ⊨ “∃ proper class of strong cardinals”, but the smallest superstrong cardinal is less than the smallest strong cardinal (if both types exist). (See [SRK] and [Mo] for the arguments involving supercompact and huge, which translate routinely to strong and superstrong.)Given any two types of large cardinals, a typical vague question which is often asked is “How large is the gap in consistency strength?” In one sense the gap might be considered relatively small, since the “higher degree” strong cardinals described below (a standard trick that is nearly always available) and the Shelah and Woodin hierarchies of cardinals (see [St] for a definition of these) seem to be (at least at this point in time) the only “natural” large cardinal properties lying between strong cardinals and superstrong cardinals in consistency strength.

Stationary reflections for uncountable cofinality

It was J. E. Baumgartner who in [1] proved that when a weakly compact cardinal is Lévy-collapsed to ω2 the new ω2 inherits some of the large cardinal properties; e.g. if S is a stationary set of ω-limits in ω2 then for some α &lt; ω2, S ∩ α is stationary in α. Later S. Shelah extended this to the following theorem: if a supercompact cardinal κ is Lévy-collapsed to ω2, then in the resulting model the following holds: if S ⊆ λ is a stationary set of ω-limits and cf(λ) ≥ ω2 then there is an α. &lt; λ such that S ∩ α is stationary in α, i.e. stationary reflection holds for countable cofinality (see [1] and [3]). These theorems are important prototypes of small cardinal compactness theorems; many applications and generalizations can be found in the literature. One might think that these results are true for sets with an uncountable cofinality μ as well, i.e. when an appropriate large cardinal is collapsed to μ++. Though this is true for Baumgartner's theorem, there remains a problem with Shelah's result. The point is that the lemma stating that a stationary set of ω-limits remains stationary after forcing with an ω2-closed partial order may be false in the case of μ-limits in a cardinal of the form λ+ with cf(λ) &lt; μ, as was shown in [8] by Shelah. The problem has recently been solved by Baumgartner, who observed that if a universal box-sequence on the class of those ordinals with cofinality ≤ μ exists, the lemma still holds, and a universal box-sequence of the above type can be added without destroying supercompact cardinals beyond μ.

Algebraic independence

This paper is concerned with algebraic independence in structures that are relatively simple for their size. It is shown that for κ a limit cardinal, if a structure of power at least κ is ∞ω-equivalent to a structure of power less than κ, then must contain an infinite set of algebraically independent elements. The same method of proof yields the fact that if σ is an Lω1ω-sentence (not necessarily complete) and σ has a model of power ℵω then some model of σ contains an infinite algebraically independent set.All structures are assumed to be of countable similarity type. Letters , etc. will be used to denote either a structure or the universe of the structure. If X ⊆ , the algebraic closure of X (in ), denoted by Cl(X), is the union of all finite sets that are weakly definable (in ) by Lωω-formulas with parameters from X. A set S is algebraically independent if for each a in S, a ∉ Cl(S – {a}). An algebraically independent set is sometimes called a “free” set (in [3] and [4], for example).It is known (see [5]) that any structure of power ℵn must have a set of n algebraically independent elements, and there are structures of power ℵn with no independent set of size n + 1. In power ℵω every structure will have arbitrarily large finite algebraically independent sets. However, it is consistent with ZFC that some models of power ℵω do not have any infinite algebraically independent set. Devlin [4] showed that if V = L, then for any cardinal κ, if every structure of power κ has an infinite algebraically independent set, then κ has a certain large cardinal property that ℵω can never possess.

Precipitous ideals

The properties of small cardinals such as ℵ1 tend to be much more complex than those of large cardinals, so that properties of ℵ1 may often be better understood by viewing them as large cardinal properties. In this paper we show that the existence of a precipitous ideal on ℵ1 is essentially the same as measurability.If I is an ideal on P(κ) then R(I) is the notion of forcing whose conditions are sets x ∈ P(κ)/I, with x ≤ x′ if x ⊆ x′. Thus a set D R(I)-generic over the ground model V is an ultrafilter on P(κ) ⋂ V extending the filter dual to I. The ideal I is said to be precipitous if κ ⊨R(I)(Vκ/D is wellfounded).One example of a precipitous ideal is the ideal dual to a κ-complete ultrafilter U on κ. This example is trivial since the generic ultrafilter D is equal to U and is already in the ground model. A generic set may be viewed as one that can be worked with in the ground model even though it is not actually in the ground model, so we might expect that cardinals such as ℵ1 that cannot be measurable still might have precipitous ideals, and such ideals might correspond closely to measures.

Ramsey cardinals and constructibility

Large cardinal properties divide rather strikingly into two groups. “Small” large cardinal properties such as weak compactness always relativize to L, while in contrast “large” large cardinal properties such as Ramsey are incompatible with L. These properties seem to be similar otherwise and this sense of similarity is reinforced by the fact that many of the large cardinals do exist in the L-like model L(μ). This paper will show that the division is caused by an artificially restrictive class of “constructible” sets rather than an essential difference in the properties themselves. Specifically, we consider the class K of sets constructible from mice as defined by Dodd and Jensen [3] and proveTheorem 1. If ρ is Ramsey then ρ is Ramsey in K.A modification of the proof will showTheorem 2. If ρ is Jonson, then ρ is Ramsey in K.Since Ramsey implies Jonson this shows that the notions are equiconsistent. Theorem 2 was proved by Kunen [5] under the assumption that V = L(μ).The proof of Theorems 1 and 2 depends heavily on results of Dodd and Jensen [3] about K and mice. These results are stated without proof in §2. §2 also contains elementary (to a reader familiar with the theory of iterated ultrapowers) proofs of special cases of some of these lemmas sufficient to give a self contained proof of the following corollary of Theorem 1:Corollary. If ρ ≤ κ,ρ is Ramsey and L(μ) ⊨ μ is a measure on κ then L(μ) ⊨ ρ is Ramsey.