Some remarks on a question of D. H. Fremlin regarding ε-density

We show the relative consistency of ℵ₁ satisfying a combinatorial property considered by David Fremlin (in the question DU from his list) in certain choiceless inner models. This is demonstrated by first proving the property is true for Ramsey cardinals. In contrast, we show that in ZFC, no cardinal of uncountable cofinality can satisfy a similar, stronger property. The questions considered by D. H. Fremlin are if families of finite subsets of ω₁ satisfying a certain density condition necessarily contain all finite subsets of an infinite subset of ω₁, and specifically if this and a stronger property hold under MA + ?CH. Towards this we show that if MA + ?CH holds, then for every family ? of ℵ₁ many infinite subsets of ω₁, one can find a family ? of finite subsets of ω₁ which is dense in Fremlins sense, and does not contain all finite subsets of any set in ?. We then pose some open problems related to the question. Received: 2 June 1999 / Revised version: 2 February 2000 / Published online: 18 July 2001     

On a problem of Foreman and Magidor

A question of Foreman and Magidor asks if it is consistent for every sequence of stationary subsets of the _ns for 1n< to be mutually stationary. We get a positive answer to this question in the context of the negation of the Axiom of Choice. We also indicate how a positive answer to a generalized version of this question in a choiceless context may be obtained.The author wishes to thank James Cummings for helpful correspondence on the subject matter of this paper. The author also wishes to thank the referee and Andreas Blass, the corresponding editor, for helpful comments and suggestions that have been incorporated into this version of the paper. 03E35, 03E55 Supercompact cardinal – Indestructibility – Almost huge cardinal – Mutual stationarity – Symmetric inner modelRevised version: 6 June 2004     

A Characterization of Generalized Příkrý Sequences

A generalization of Příkry's forcing is analyzed which adjoins to a model of ZFC a set of order type at most ω below each member of a discrete set of measurable cardinals. A characterization of generalized Příkry generic sequences reminiscent of Mathias' criterion for Příkry genericity is provided, together with a maximality theorem which states that a generalized Příkry sequence almost contains every other one lying in the same extension. This forcing can be used to falsify the covering lemma for a higher core model if there is an inner model with infinitely many measurable cardinals – changing neither cardinalities nor cofinalities. Another application is an alternative proof of a theorem of Mitchell stating that if the core model contains a regular limit θ of measurable cardinals, then there is a model in which every set of measurable cardinals of K bounded in θ has an indiscernible sequence but there is no such sequence for the entire set of measurables of K below θ. During the research for this paper the author was supported by DFG-Project Je209/1-2.     

Universality of the automorphism group of the real line

We discuss the question, whether each automorphism group (of cardinality at most ) of a linear order is embeddable into the automorphism group of the real line. We show that the answer to this question is independent of the axioms of ZFC: the answer is positive, if we assume < and Souslin's hypothesis; the answer is negative, if we assume orV=L.     

Some Nasty reflexive groups

In {\it Almost Free Modules, Set-theoretic Methods}, Eklof and Mekler [5,p. 455, Problem 12] raised the question about the existence of dual abelian groups G which are not isomorphic to . Recall that G is a dual group if for some group D with . The existence of such groups is not obvious because dual groups are subgroups of cartesian products and therefore have very many homomorphisms into . If is such a homomorphism arising from a projection of the cartesian product, then . In all `classical cases' of groups {\it D} of infinite rank it turns out that . Is this always the case? Also note that reflexive groups G in the sense of H. Bass are dual groups because by definition the evaluation map is an isomorphism, hence G is the dual of . Assuming the diamond axiom for we will construct a reflexive torsion-free abelian group of cardinality which is not isomorphic to . The result is formulated for modules over countable principal ideal domains which are not field. Received July 1, 1999; in final form January 26, 2000 / Published online April 12, 2001     

The Chase radical and reduced products

Let κ be a regular uncountable cardinal. We shall give a criterion for certain reduced products of torsion-free abelian groups to be ℵ₁-free. As an application we shall show that the norm of the Chase radical is ℵ₁ in ZFC, a result which was previously known only under the assumption of the continuum hypothesis 2^ℵ₀=ℵ₁.     

Homogenization of a boundary condition for the heat equation

An asymptotic analysis is given for the heat equation with mixed boundary conditions rapidly oscillating between Dirichlet and Neumann type. We try to present a general framework where deterministic homogenization methods can be applied to calculate the second term in the asymptotic expansion with respect to the small parameter characterizing the oscillations. Received August 20, 1999 / final version received March 1, 2000?Published online June 21, 2000     

Undecidability of automorphism groups

We give a simple (and easy to apply) technique that gives the undecidability of the theory of many automorphism groups: Let G be a group of automorphisms of a structure. Suppose that is not the identity and has no non-singleton finite orbits. If the centraliser of g is transitive on the support of g and satisfies a further technical condition, then the subgroup generated by g is equal to the double centraliser of g. Thus if G contains such an element g that is conjugate to all its positive powers, then one can interpret addition and multiplication of natural numbers in the theory of G using the parameter g; consequently, G has undecidable theory. Received: 9 October 2000 / in final form: 2 October 2001 / Published online: 29 April 2002     

Cofinal types of ultrafilters

We study Tukey types of ultrafilters on ω, focusing on the question of when Tukey reducibility is equivalent to Rudin-Keisler reducibility. We give several conditions under which this equivalence holds. We show that there are only c many ultrafilters that are Tukey below any basically generated ultrafilter. The class of basically generated ultrafilters includes all known ultrafilters that are not Tukey above [ω₁]^<ω. We give a complete characterization of all ultrafilters that are Tukey below a selective. A counterexample showing that Tukey reducibility and RK reducibility can diverge within the class of P-points is also given.     

Weak covering and the tree property

Suppose that there is no transitive model of ZFC + there is a strong cardinal, and let K denote the core model. It is shown that if has the tree property then and is weakly compact in K. Received: 11 June 1997     

The cardinal characteristic for relative γ-sets

For X a separable metric space define p(X) to be the smallest cardinality of a subset Z of X which is not a relative γ-set in X, i.e., there exists an ω-cover of X with no γ-subcover of Z. We give a characterization of p(ω²) and p(ωω) in terms of definable free filters on ω which is related to the pseudo-intersection number p. We show that for every uncountable standard analytic space X that either p(X)=p(ω²) or p(X)=p(ωω). We show that the following statements are each relatively consistent with ZFC: (a) p=p(ωω)<p(ω²) and (b) p<p(ωω)=p(ω²)     

Mob families and mad families

We show the consistency of where is the size of the smallest off-branch family, and is as usual the dominating number. We also prove the consistency of with large continuum. Here, is the unbounding number, and is the almost disjointness number. Received: September 12, 1996 / Revised version received: June 16, 1997     

Absolute E-rings

A ring R with 1 is called an E-ring if EndZR is ring-isomorphic to R under the canonical homomorphism taking the value 1σ for any σ∈EndZR. Moreover R is an absolute E-ring if it remains an E-ring in every generic extension of the universe. E-rings are an important tool for algebraic topology as explained in the introduction. The existence of an E-ring R of each cardinality of the form λℵ₀ was shown by Dugas, Mader and Vinsonhaler (1987) [9]. We want to show the existence of absolute E-rings. It turns out that there is a precise cardinal-barrier κ(ω) for this problem: (The cardinal κ(ω) is the first ω-Erd?s cardinal defined in the introduction. It is a relative of measurable cardinals.) We will construct absolute E-rings of any size λ<κ(ω). But there are no absolute E-rings of cardinality ?κ(ω). The non-existence of huge, absolute E-rings ?κ(ω) follows from a recent paper by Herden and Shelah (2009) [24] and the construction of absolute E-rings R is based on an old result by Shelah (1982) [31] where families of absolute, rigid colored trees (with no automorphism between any distinct members) are constructed. We plant these trees into our potential E-rings with the aim to prevent unwanted endomorphisms of their additive group to survive. Endomorphisms will recognize the trees which will have branches infinitely often divisible by primes. Our main result provides the existence of absolute E-rings for all infinite cardinals λ<κ(ω), i.e. these E-rings remain E-rings in all generic extensions of the universe (e.g. using forcing arguments). Indeed all previously known E-rings (Dugas, Mader and Vinsonhaler, 1987 [9]; Göbel and Trlifaj, 2006 [23]) of cardinality ?ℵ₀² have a free additive group R⁺ in some extended universe, thus are no longer E-rings, as explained in the introduction. Our construction also fills all cardinal-gaps of the earlier constructions (which have only sizes λℵ₀). These E-rings are domains and as a by-product we obtain the existence of absolutely indecomposable abelian groups, compare Göbel and Shelah (2007) [22].     

Consistency of V = HOD with the wholeness axiom

The Wholeness Axiom (WA) is an axiom schema that can be added to the axioms of ZFC in an extended language , and that asserts the existence of a nontrivial elementary embedding . The well-known inconsistency proofs are avoided by omitting from the schema all instances of Replacement for j-formulas. We show that the theory ZFC + V = HOD + WA is consistent relative to the existence of an embedding. This answers a question about the existence of Laver sequences for regular classes of set embeddings: Assuming there is an -embedding, there is a transitive model of ZFC +WA + “there is a regular class of embeddings that admits no Laver sequence.” Received: 7 July 1998 / Revised version: 5 November 1998     

Asymmetric positive solutions for a symmetric nonlinear problem in {\mathbb R}^N

We study a symmetric semilinear elliptic problem in all and we prove existence of an asymmetric positive solution by using variational arguments. The corresponding problem in dimension N=2, which provides the motivation of this work, arises in Nonlinear Optics from the study of the behaviour of optical cylindrical waveguides. Received September 28, 1999/ Accepted January 14, 2000 / Published online June 28, 2000     

Disasters in topology without the axiom of choice

We show that some well known theorems in topology may not be true without the axiom of choice. Received: 29 August 1995 / Revised version: 23 June 2000 / Published online: 3 October 2001     

Dynamics near extinction time of a singular diffusion equation

We will show that if u is the solution of the equation , in is an even function on and is monotone decreasing in on , , where is a monotone increasing function satisfying with being given by and , then the rescaled function , will converge uniformly on every compact subset of to as where . Received: 25 May 2000 / Revised version: 26 October 2001 / Published online: 28 February 2002     

Random reals and the relation 171-1171-1171-1

It is consistent that ₁(₁,(:n))² holds in any random extension for n finite and countable.     

On the weak Freese–Nation property of ?(ω)

Continuing [6], [8] and [16], we study the consequences of the weak Freese-Nation property of (?(ω),⊆). Under this assumption, we prove that most of the known cardinal invariants including all of those appearing in Cichoń's diagram take the same value as in the corresponding Cohen model. Using this principle we could also strengthen two results of W. Just about cardinal sequences of superatomic Boolean algebras in a Cohen model. These results show that the weak Freese-Nation property of (?(ω),⊆) captures many of the features of Cohen models and hence may be considered as a principle axiomatizing a good portion of the combinatorics available in Cohen models. Received: 7 June 1999 / Revised version: 17 October 1999 /?Published online: 15 June 2001