Academic literature on the topic 'Singular Cardinal Hypothesis'

The tree property at κ+ states that there are no Aronszajn trees on κ+, or, equivalently, that every κ+ tree has a cofinal branch. For singular strong limit cardinals κ, there is tension between the tree property at κ+ and failure of the singular cardinal hypothesis at κ; the former is typically the result of the presence of strongly compact cardinals in the background, and the latter is impossible above strongly compacts. In this paper, we reconcile the two. We prove from large cardinals that the tree property at κ+ is consistent with failure of the singular cardinal hypothesis at κ.

The large cardinal-like properties of saturated ideals have been investigated by various authors, including Foreman [F], and Jech and Prikry [JP], among others. One of the most interesting consequences of a strongly compact cardinal is the following theorem of Solovay [So2]: if a strongly compact cardinal exists then the singular cardinal hypothesis holds above it. In this paper we discuss the question of relating the existence of saturated ideals and the singular cardinal hypothesis. We will show that the existence of “strongly” saturated ideals implies the singular cardinal hypothesis. As a biproduct we will present a proof of the above mentioned theorem of Solovay using generic ultrapowers. See Jech and Prikry [JP] for a nice exposition of generic ultrapowers. We owe a lot to the work of Foreman [F]. We would like to express our gratitude to Noa Goldring for many helpful comments and discussions.Throughout this paper we assume that κ is a strongly inaccessible cardinal and λ is a cardinal >κ. By an ideal on κλ we mean a κ-complete fine ideal on Pκλ. For I an ideal on κλ let PI denote the poset of I-positive subsets of κλ.Definition. Let I be an ideal on κλ. We say that I is a bounding ideal if 1 ⊩-PI “δ(δ is regular cardinal ”.We can show that if a normal ideal is “strongly” saturated then it is bounding.Theorem 1. If 1 is an η-saturated normal ideal onκλ, where η is a cardinal <λsuch that there are fewer thanκmany cardinals betweenκand η (i.e. η < κ+κ), then I is bounding.Proof. Let I be such an ideal on κλ. By the work of Foreman [F] and others, we know that every λ+-saturated normal ideal is precipitous. Suppose G is a generic filter for our PI. Let j: V → M be the corresponding generic elementary embedding. By a theorem of Foreman [F, Lemma 10], we know that Mλ ⊂ M in V[G]. By η-saturation, cofinalities ≥η are preserved; that is, if cfvα ≥ η, then cfvα = cfv[G]α. From j ↾ Vκ being the identity on Vκ and M being λ-closed in V[G], we conclude that cofinalities <κ are preserved. Therefore if cfvα ≠ cfv[G]α then κ ≤ cfvα < η.

The purpose of this communication is to present some recent advances on the consequences that forcing axioms and large cardinals have on the combinatorics of singular cardinals. I will introduce a few examples of problems in singular cardinal combinatorics which can be fruitfully attacked using ideas and techniques coming from the theory of forcing axioms and then translate the results so obtained in suitable large cardinals properties.The first example I will treat is the proof that the proper forcing axiom PFA implies the singular cardinal hypothesis SCH, this will easily lead to a new proof of Solovay's theorem that SCH holds above a strongly compact cardinal. I will also outline how some of the ideas involved in these proofs can be used as means to evaluate the “saturation” properties of models of strong forcing axioms like MM or PFA.The second example aims to show that the transfer principle (ℵω+1, ℵω) ↠ (ℵ2, ℵ1) fails assuming Martin's Maximum MM. Also in this case the result can be translated in a large cardinal property, however this requires a familiarity with a rather large fragment of Shelah's pcf-theory.Only sketchy arguments will be given, the reader is referred to the forthcoming [25] and [38] for a thorough analysis of these problems and for detailed proofs.

AbstractThe 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.

We show that, assuming the consistency of a supercompact cardinal, the first (weakly) inaccessible cardinal can satisfy a strong form of a Löwenheim–Skolem–Tarski theorem for the equicardinality logic L(I), a logic introduced in [5] strictly between first order logic and second order logic. On the other hand we show that in the light of present day inner model technology, nothing short of a supercompact cardinal suffices for this result. In particular, we show that the Löwenheim–Skolem–Tarski theorem for the equicardinality logic at κ implies the Singular Cardinals Hypothesis above κ as well as Projective Determinacy.

AbstractWe determine exact consistency strengths for various failures of the Singular Cardinals Hypothesis (SCH) in the setting of the Zermelo-Fraenkel axiom system ZF without the Axiom of Choice (AC). By the new notion of parallel Prikry forcing that we introduce, we obtain surjective failures of SCH using only one measurable cardinal, including a surjective failure of Shelah's pcf theorem about the size of the power set of ℵω. Using symmetric collapses to ℵω, , or , we show that injective failures at ℵω, , or can have relatively mild consistency strengths in terms of Mitchell orders of measurable cardinals. Injective failures of both the aforementioned theorem of Shelah and Silver's theorem that GCH cannot first fail at a singular strong limit cardinal of uncountable cofinality are also obtained. Lower bounds are shown by core model techniques and methods due to Gitik and Mitchell.