In the first part of this paper, we consider several natural axioms in urelement set theory, including the Collection Principle, the Reflection Principle, the Dependent Choice scheme and its generalizations, as well as other axioms specifically concerning urelements. We prove that these axioms form a hierarchy over $\text {ZFCU}_{\text {R}}$ (ZFC with urelements formulated with Replacement) in terms of direct implication. The second part of the paper studies forcing over countable transitive models of $\text {ZFU}_{\text {R}}$. We propose a new definition of ${\mathbb P}$-names to address an issue with the existing approach. We then prove the fundamental theorem of forcing with urelements regarding axiom preservation. Moreover, we show that forcing can destroy and recover certain axioms within the previously established hierarchy. Finally, we demonstrate how ground model definability may fail when the ground model contains a proper class of urelements.

We investigate the notion of strong measure zero sets in the context of the higher Cantor space $2^\kappa $ for $\kappa $ at least inaccessible. Using an iteration of perfect tree forcings, we give two proofs of the relative consistency of

$$\begin{align*}|2^\kappa| = \kappa^{++} + \forall X \subseteq 2^\kappa:\ X \textrm{ is strong measure zero if and only if } |X| \leq \kappa^+. \end{align*}$$

There is a balance between the amount of (weak) indestructibility one can have and the amount of strong cardinals. It’s consistent relative to large cardinals to have lots of strong cardinals and all of their degrees of strength are weakly indestructible. But this necessitates the destructibility of the partially strong cardinals. Guaranteeing the indestructibility of the partially strong cardinals is shown to be harder. In particular, this work establishes an equiconsistency between:

1. 1. a proper class of cardinals that are strong reflecting strongs; and

2. 2. weak indestructibility for (κ+2)-strength for all cardinals κ in the presence of a proper class of strong cardinals.

1. 3. weak indestructibility for all degrees of strength for a proper class of strong cardinals.

One direction of the equiconsistency of (1) and (2) is proven using forcing and the other using core model techniques from inner model theory. Additionally, connections between weak indestructibility and the reflection properties associated with Woodin cardinals are discussed, and similar results are derived for supercompacts and supercompacts reflecting supercompacts.

Abstract prepared by James Holland.

E-mail: jch258@scarletmail.rutgers.edu

URL: https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~jch258/assets/dis.pdf

An infinite graph is said to be highly connected if the induced subgraph on the complement of any set of vertices of smaller size is connected. We continue the study of weaker versions of Ramsey’s theorem on uncountable cardinals asserting that if we color edges of the complete graph, we can find a large highly connected monochromatic subgraph. In particular, several questions of Bergfalk, Hrušák, and Shelah (2021, Acta Mathematica Hungarica 163, 309–322) are answered by showing that assuming the consistency of suitable large cardinals, the following are relatively consistent with ZFC:

• • $\kappa \to _{hc} (\kappa )^2_\omega $ for every regular cardinal $\kappa \geq \aleph _2$,

• • $\neg \mathsf {CH}+ \aleph _2 \to _{hc} (\aleph _1)^2_\omega $.

Building on a work of Lambie-Hanson (2023, Fundamenta Mathematicae. 260(2):181–197), we also show that

• • $\aleph _2 \to _{hc} [\aleph _2]^2_{\omega ,2}$ is consistent with $\neg \mathsf {CH}$.

To prove these results, we use the existence of ideals with strong combinatorial properties after collapsing suitable large cardinals.

We consider of constructing normal ultrafilters in extensions are here Easton support iterations of Prikry-type forcing notions. New ways presented. It turns out that, in contrast with other supports, seemingly unrelated measures or extenders can be involved here.

It is consistent relative to an inaccessible cardinal that ZF+DC holds, and the hypergraph of isosceles triangles on $\mathbb {R}^2$ has countable chromatic number while the hypergraph of isosceles triangles on $\mathbb {R}^3$ has uncountable chromatic number.

For which infinite cardinals $\kappa $ is there a partition of the real line ${\mathbb R}$ into precisely $\kappa $ Borel sets? Work of Lusin, Souslin, and Hausdorff shows that ${\mathbb R}$ can be partitioned into $\aleph _1$ Borel sets. But other than this, we show that the spectrum of possible sizes of partitions of ${\mathbb R}$ into Borel sets can be fairly arbitrary. For example, given any $A \subseteq \omega $ with $0,1 \in A$, there is a forcing extension in which ${A = \{ n :\, \text {there is a partition of } {{\mathbb R}} \text { into }\aleph _n\text { Borel sets}\}}$. We also look at the corresponding question for partitions of ${\mathbb R}$ into closed sets. We show that, like with partitions into Borel sets, the set of all uncountable $\kappa $ such that there is a partition of ${\mathbb R}$ into precisely $\kappa $ closed sets can be fairly arbitrary.

In the Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the Axiom of Choice, a forcing notion is “$\kappa $-distributive” if and only if it is “$\kappa $-sequential.” We show that without the Axiom of Choice, this equivalence fails, even if we include a weak form of the Axiom of Choice, the Principle of Dependent Choice for $\kappa $. Still, the equivalence may still hold along with very strong failures of the Axiom of Choice, assuming the consistency of large cardinal axioms. We also prove that although a $\kappa $-distributive forcing notion may violate Dependent Choice, it must preserve the Axiom of Choice for families of size $\kappa $. On the other hand, a $\kappa $-sequential can violate the Axiom of Choice for countable families. We also provide a condition of “quasiproperness” which is sufficient for the preservation of Dependent Choice, and is also necessary if the forcing notion is sequential.

We prove that it is consistent that Club Stationary Reflection and the Special Aronszajn Tree Property simultaneously hold on $\omega _2$ , thereby contributing to the study of the tension between compactness and incompactness in set theory. The poset which produces the final model follows the collapse of an ineffable cardinal first with an iteration of club adding (with anticipation) and second with an iteration specializing Aronszajn trees.

In the first part of the paper, we prove a general theorem about specializing Aronszajn trees on $\omega _2$ after forcing with what we call $\mathcal {F}$ -Strongly Proper posets, where $\mathcal {F}$ is either the weakly compact filter or the filter dual to the ineffability ideal. This type of poset, of which the Levy collapse is a degenerate example, uses systems of exact residue functions to create many strongly generic conditions. We prove a new result about stationary set preservation by quotients of this kind of poset; as a corollary, we show that the original Laver–Shelah model, which starts from a weakly compact cardinal, satisfies a strong stationary reflection principle, although it fails to satisfy the full Club Stationary Reflection. In the second part, we show that the composition of collapsing and club adding (with anticipation) is an $\mathcal {F}$ -Strongly Proper poset. After proving a new result about Aronszajn tree preservation, we show how to obtain the final model.

We show that after forcing with a countable support iteration or a finite product of Sacks or splitting forcing over L, every analytic hypergraph on a Polish space admits a $\mathbf {\Delta }^1_2$ maximal independent set. This extends an earlier result by Schrittesser (see [25]). As a main application we get the consistency of $\mathfrak {r} = \mathfrak {u} = \mathfrak {i} = \omega _2$ together with the existence of a $\Delta ^1_2$ ultrafilter, a $\Pi ^1_1$ maximal independent family, and a $\Delta ^1_2$ Hamel basis. This solves open problems of Brendle, Fischer, and Khomskii [5] and the author [23]. We also show in ZFC that $\mathfrak {d} \leq \mathfrak {i}_{cl}$ , addressing another question from [5].

In providing a good foundation for mathematics, set theorists often aim to develop the strongest theories possible and avoid those theories that place undue restrictions on the capacity to possess strength. For example, adding a measurable cardinal to $ZFC$ is thought to give a stronger theory than adding $V=L$ and the latter is thought to be more restrictive than the former. The two main proponents of this style of account are Penelope Maddy and John Steel. In this paper, I’ll offer a third account that is intended to provide a simple analysis of restrictiveness based on the algebraic concept of retraction in the category of theories. I will also deliver some results and arguments that suggest some plausible alternative approaches to analyzing restrictiveness do not live up to their intuitive motivation.

We study higher analogues of the classical independence number on $\omega $ . For $\kappa $ regular uncountable, we denote by $i(\kappa )$ the minimal size of a maximal $\kappa $ -independent family. We establish ZFC relations between $i(\kappa )$ and the standard higher analogues of some of the classical cardinal characteristics, e.g., $\mathfrak {r}(\kappa )\leq \mathfrak {i}(\kappa )$ and $\mathfrak {d}(\kappa )\leq \mathfrak {i}(\kappa )$ . For $\kappa $ measurable, assuming that $2^{\kappa }=\kappa ^{+}$ we construct a maximal $\kappa $ -independent family which remains maximal after the $\kappa $ -support product of $\lambda $ many copies of $\kappa $ -Sacks forcing. Thus, we show the consistency of $\kappa ^{+}=\mathfrak {d}(\kappa )=\mathfrak {i}(\kappa )<2^{\kappa }$ . We conclude the paper with interesting open questions and discuss difficulties regarding other natural approaches to higher independence.

The technique of forcing is almost ubiquitous in set theory, and it seems to be based on technicalities like the concepts of genericity, forcing names and their evaluations, and on the recursively defined forcing predicates, the definition of which is particularly intricate for the basic case of atomic first order formulas. In his [3], the first author has provided an axiomatic framework for set forcing over models of $\mathrm {ZFC}$ that is a collection of guiding principles for extensions over which one still has control from the ground model, and has shown that these axiomatics necessarily lead to the usual concepts of genericity and of forcing extensions, and also that one can infer from them the usual recursive definition of forcing predicates. In this paper, we present a more general such approach, covering both class forcing and set forcing, over various base theories, and we provide additional details regarding the formal setting that was outlined in [3].

Let P be a forcing notion and $G\subseteq P$ its generic subset. Suppose that we have in $V[G]$ a $\kappa{-}$ complete ultrafilter1 , 2 W over $\kappa $ . Set $U=W\cap V$ .

We study the values of the higher dimensional cardinal characteristics for sets of functions $f:\omega ^\omega \to \omega ^\omega $ introduced by the second author in [8]. We prove that while the bounding numbers for these cardinals can be strictly less than the continuum, the dominating numbers cannot. We compute the bounding numbers for the higher dimensional relations in many well known models of $\neg \mathsf {CH}$ such as the Cohen, random and Sacks models and, as a byproduct show that, with one exception, for the bounding numbers there are no $\mathsf {ZFC}$ relations between them beyond those in the higher dimensional Cichoń diagram. In the case of the dominating numbers we show that in fact they collapse in the sense that modding out by the ideal does not change their values. Moreover, they are closely related to the dominating numbers $\mathfrak {d}^\lambda _\kappa $.

We obtain an array of consistency results concerning trees and stationary reflection at double successors of regular cardinals $\kappa $ , updating some classical constructions in the process. This includes models of $\mathsf {CSR}(\kappa ^{++})\wedge {\sf TP}(\kappa ^{++})$ (both with and without ${\sf AP}(\kappa ^{++})$ ) and models of the conjunctions ${\sf SR}(\kappa ^{++}) \wedge \mathsf {wTP}(\kappa ^{++}) \wedge {\sf AP}(\kappa ^{++})$ and $\neg {\sf AP}(\kappa ^{++}) \wedge {\sf SR}(\kappa ^{++})$ (the latter was originally obtained in joint work by Krueger and the first author [9], and is here given using different methods). Analogs of these results with the failure of $\sf {SH}(\kappa ^{++})$ are given as well. Finally, we obtain all of our results with an arbitrarily large $2^\kappa $ , applying recent joint work by Honzik and the third author.

We make comments on some problems Erdős and Hajnal posed in their famous problem list. Let X be a graph on $\omega _1$ with the property that every uncountable set A of vertices contains a finite set s such that each element of $A-s$ is joined to one of the elements of s. Does then X contain an uncountable clique? (Problem 69) We prove that both the statement and its negation are consistent. Do there exist circuitfree graphs $\{X_n:n<\omega \}$ on $\omega _1$ such that if $A\in [\omega _1]^{\aleph _1}$ , then $\{n<\omega :X_n\cap [A]^2=\emptyset \}$ is finite? (Problem 61) We show that the answer is yes under CH, and no under Martin’s axiom. Does there exist $F:[\omega _1]^2\to 3$ with all three colors appearing in every uncountable set, and with no triangle of three colors. (Problem 68) We give a different proof of Todorcevic’ theorem that the existence of a $\kappa $ -Suslin tree gives $F:[\kappa ]^2\to \kappa $ establishing $\kappa \not \to [\kappa ]^2_{\kappa }$ with no three-colored triangles. This statement in turn implies the existence of a $\kappa $ -Aronszajn tree.

The dissertation under comment is a contribution to the area of Set Theory concerned with the interactions between the method of Forcing and the so-called Large Cardinal axioms.

The dissertation is divided into two thematic blocks. In Block I we analyze the large-cardinal hierarchy between the first supercompact cardinal and Vopěnka’s Principle (Part I). In turn, Block II is devoted to the investigation of some problems arising from Singular Cardinal Combinatorics (Part II and Part III).

We commence Part I by investigating the Identity Crisis phenomenon in the region comprised between the first supercompact cardinal and Vopěnka’s Principle. As a result, we generalize Magidor’s classical theorems [2] to this higher region of the large-cardinal hierarchy. Also, our analysis allows to settle all the questions that were left open in [1]. Finally, we conclude Part I by presenting a general theory of preservation of $C^{(n)}$ -extendible cardinals under class forcing iterations. From this analysis we derive several applications. For instance, our arguments are used to show that an extendible cardinal is consistent with “ $(\lambda ^{+\omega })^{\mathrm {HOD}}<\lambda ^+$ , for every regular cardinal $\lambda $ .” In particular, if Woodin’s HOD Conjecture holds, and therefore it is provable in ZFC + “There exists an extendible cardinal” that above the first extendible cardinal every singular cardinal $\lambda $ is singular in HOD and $(\lambda ^+)^{\textrm {{HOD}}}=\lambda ^+$ , there may still be no agreement at all between V and HOD about successors of regular cardinals.

In Part II and Part III we analyse the relationship between the Singular Cardinal Hypothesis (SCH) with other relevant combinatorial principles at the level of successors of singular cardinals. Two of these are the Tree Property and the Reflection of Stationary sets, which are central in Infinite Combinatorics.

Specifically, Part II is devoted to prove the consistency of the Tree Property at both $\kappa ^+$ and $\kappa ^{++}$ , whenever $\kappa $ is a strong limit singular cardinal witnessing an arbitrary failure of the SCH. This generalizes the main result of [3] in two senses: it allows arbitrary cofinalities for $\kappa $ and arbitrary failures for the SCH.

In the last part of the dissertation (Part III) we introduce the notion of $\Sigma $ -Prikry forcing. This new concept allows an abstract and uniform approach to the theory of Prikry-type forcings and encompasses several classical examples of Prikry-type forcing notions, such as the classical Prikry forcing, the Gitik-Sharon poset, or the Extender Based Prikry forcing, among many others.

Our motivation in this part of the dissertation is to prove an iteration theorem at the level of the successor of a singular cardinal. Specifically, we aim for a theorem asserting that every $\kappa ^{++}$ -length iteration with support of size $\leq \kappa $ has the $\kappa ^{++}$ -cc, provided the iterates belong to a relevant class of $\kappa ^{++}$ -cc forcings. While there are a myriad of works on this vein for regular cardinals, this contrasts with the dearth of investigations in the parallel context of singular cardinals. Our main contribution is the proof that such a result is available whenever the class of forcings under consideration is the family of $\Sigma $ -Prikry forcings. Finally, and as an application, we prove that it is consistent—modulo large cardinals—the existence of a strong limit cardinal $\kappa $ with countable cofinality such that $\mathrm {SCH}_\kappa $ fails and every finite family of stationary subsets of $\kappa ^+$ reflects simultaneously.

A strong coloring on a cardinal $\kappa $ is a function $f:[\kappa ]^2\to \kappa $ such that for every $A\subseteq \kappa $ of full size $\kappa $ , every color $\unicode{x3b3} <\kappa $ is attained by $f\restriction [A]^2$ . The symbol

$$ \begin{align*} \kappa\nrightarrow[\kappa]^2_{\kappa} \end{align*} $$

$\kappa $

We introduce the symbol

$$ \begin{align*} \kappa\nrightarrow_p[\kappa]^2_{\kappa} \end{align*} $$

$f:[\kappa ]^2\to \kappa $

$p:[\kappa ]^2\to \theta $

$A\in [\kappa ]^{\kappa }$

$i<\theta $

$\unicode{x3b3} <\kappa $

$f\restriction ([A]^2\cap p^{-1}(i))$

We prove that whenever $\kappa \nrightarrow [\kappa ]^2_{\kappa }$ holds, also $\kappa \nrightarrow _p[\kappa ]^2_{\kappa }$ holds for an arbitrary finite partition p. Similarly, arbitrary finite p-s can be added to stronger symbols which hold in any model of ZFC. If $\kappa ^{\theta }=\kappa $ , then $\kappa \nrightarrow _p[\kappa ]^2_{\kappa }$ and stronger symbols, like $\operatorname {Pr}_1(\kappa ,\kappa ,\kappa ,\chi )_p$ or $\operatorname {Pr}_0(\kappa ,\kappa ,\kappa ,\aleph _0)_p$ , also hold for an arbitrary partition p to $\theta $ parts.

The symbols

$$ \begin{gather*} \aleph_1\nrightarrow_p[\aleph_1]^2_{\aleph_1},\;\;\; \aleph_1\nrightarrow_p[\aleph_1\circledast \aleph_1]^2_{\aleph_1},\;\;\; \aleph_0\circledast\aleph_1\nrightarrow_p[1\circledast\aleph_1]^2_{\aleph_1}, \\ \operatorname{Pr}_1(\aleph_1,\aleph_1,\aleph_1,\aleph_0)_p,\;\;\;\text{ and } \;\;\; \operatorname{Pr}_0(\aleph_1,\aleph_1,\aleph_1,\aleph_0)_p \end{gather*} $$

$+ \neg $

We prove that, if f is a homeomorphism of the 2-torus isotopic to the identity whose rotation set is a non-degenerate segment and f has a periodic point, then it has uniformly bounded deviations in the direction perpendicular to the segment.