Indestructibility and stationary reflection

If κ < λ are such that κ is a strong cardinal whose strongness is indestructible under κ ‐strategically closed forcing and λ is weakly compact, then we show that A = {δ < κ | δ is a non‐weakly compact Mahlo cardinal which reflects stationary sets} must be unbounded in κ. This phenomenon, however, need not occur in a universe with relatively few large cardinals. In particular, we show how to construct a model where no cardinal is supercompact up to a Mahlo cardinal in which the least supercompact cardinal κ is also the least strongly compact cardinal, κ 's strongness is indestructible under κ ‐strategically closed forcing, κ 's supercompactness is indestructible under κ ‐directed closed forcing not adding any new subsets of κ, and δ is Mahlo and reflects stationary sets iff δ is weakly compact. In this model, no strong cardinal δ < κ is indestructible under δ ‐strategically closed forcing. It therefore follows that it is relatively consistent for the least strong cardinal κ whose strongness is indestructible under κ ‐strategically closed forcing to be the same as the least supercompact cardinal, which also has its supercompactness indestructible under κ ‐directed closed forcing not adding any new subsets of κ (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Some remarks on indestructibility and Hamkins’ lottery preparation

In this paper, we first prove several general theorems about strongness, supercompactness, and indestructibility, along the way giving some new applications of Hamkins lottery preparation forcing to indestructibility. We then show that it is consistent, relative to the existence of cardinals < so that is supercompact and is inaccessible, for the least strongly compact cardinal to be the least strong cardinal and to have its strongness, but not its strong compactness, indestructible under -strategically closed forcing. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000):03E35, 03E55     

Can a large cardinal be forced from a condition implying its negation?

In this note, we provide an affirmative answer to the title question by giving two examples of cardinals satisfying conditions implying they are non-Rowbottom which can be turned into Rowbottom cardinals via forcing. In our second example, our cardinal is also non-Jonsson.

     

Strong Cardinals can be Fully Laver Indestructible

We prove three theorems which show that it is relatively consistent for any strong cardinal κ to be fully Laver indestructible under κ‐directed closed forcing.     

Gap forcing

In this paper, I generalize the landmark Lévy-Solovay Theorem [LévSol67], which limits the kind of large cardinal embeddings that can exist in a small forcing extension, to a broad new class of forcing notions, a class that includes many of the forcing iterations most commonly found in the large cardinal literature. After such forcing, the fact is that every embedding satisfying a mild closure requirement lifts an embedding from the ground model. Such forcing, consequently, can create no new weakly compact cardinals, measurable cardinals, strong cardinals, Woodin cardinals, strongly compact cardinals, supercompact cardinals, almost huge cardinals, or huge cardinals, and so on. My research has been supported in part by grants from the PSC-CUNY Research Foundation and from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. I would like to thank my gracious hosts at Kobe University in Japan for their generous hospitality. This paper follows up an earlier announcement of the main theorem appearing, without technical details, in [Ham99].     

Forcing the Least Measurable to Violate GCH

Starting with a model for “GCH + k is k⁺ supercompact”, we force and construct a model for “k is the least measurable cardinal + 2^k = K⁺”. This model has the property that forcing over it with Add(k,k⁺⁺) preserves the fact k is the least measurable cardinal.     

Extender-based Radin forcing

We define extender sequences, generalizing measure sequences of Radin forcing.

Using the extender sequences, we show how to combine the Gitik-Magidor forcing for adding many Prikry sequences with Radin forcing.

We show that this forcing satisfies a Prikry-like condition, destroys no cardinals, and has a kind of properness.

Depending on the large cardinals we start with, this forcing can blow the power of a cardinal together with changing its cofinality to a prescribed value. It can even blow the power of a cardinal while keeping it regular or measurable.

     

Universal partial indestructibility and strong compactness

For any ordinal δ, let λ_δ be the least inaccessible cardinal above δ. We force and construct a model in which the least supercompact cardinal κ is indestructible under κ‐directed closed forcing and in which every measurable cardinal δ < κ is < λ_δ strongly compact and has its < λ_δ strong compactness indestructible under δ‐directed closed forcing of rank less than λ_δ. In this model, κ is also the least strongly compact cardinal. We also establish versions of this result in which κ is the least strongly compact cardinal but is not supercompact. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The Necessary Maximality Principle for c. c. c. forcing is equiconsistent with a weakly compact cardinal

The Necessary Maximality Principle for c. c. c. forcing with real parameters is equiconsistent with the existence of a weakly compact cardinal. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Calculating quotient algebras of generic embeddings

Many consistency results in set theory involve forcing over a universe V ₀ that contains a large cardinal to get a model V ₁. The original large cardinal embedding is then extended generically using a further forcing by a partial ordering ?. Determining the properties of ? is often the crux of the consistency result. Standard techniques can usually be used to reduce to the case where ? is of the form P(Z)/J for appropriately chosen Z and countably complete ideal J. This paper proves a general algebraic Duality Theorem that exactly characterizes the Boolean algebra P(Z)/J. The Duality Theorem is general enough that it applies even if the original embedding in V ₀ was itself generic. Thus it has as corollaries the theorems of Kakuda, Baumgartner, Laver and others about preservation properties of precipitous and saturated ideals. A corollary is drawn showing that precipitous ideals are indestructible under small proper forcing.     

Indestructible Weakly Compact Cardinals and the Necessity of Supercompactness for Certain Proof Schemata

We show that if the weak compactness of a cardinal is made indestructible by means of any preparatory forcing of a certain general type, including any forcing naively resembling the Laver preparation, then the cardinal was originally supercompact. We then apply this theorem to show that the hypothesis of supercompactness is necessary for certain proof schemata.     

Indestructibility, instances of strong compactness, and level by level inequivalence

Suppose λ > κ is measurable. We show that if κ is either indestructibly supercompact or indestructibly strong, then A = {δ < κ | δ is measurable, yet δ is neither δ ⁺ strongly compact nor a limit of measurable cardinals} must be unbounded in κ. The large cardinal hypothesis on λ is necessary, as we further demonstrate by constructing via forcing two models in which ${A = \emptyset}$ . The first of these contains a supercompact cardinal κ and is such that no cardinal δ > κ is measurable, κ’s supercompactness is indestructible under κ-directed closed, (κ ⁺, ∞)-distributive forcing, and every measurable cardinal δ < κ is δ ⁺ strongly compact. The second of these contains a strong cardinal κ and is such that no cardinal δ > κ is measurable, κ’s strongness is indestructible under < κ-strategically closed, (κ ⁺, ∞)-distributive forcing, and level by level inequivalence between strong compactness and supercompactness holds. The model from the first of our forcing constructions is used to show that it is consistent, relative to a supercompact cardinal, for the least cardinal κ which is both strong and has its strongness indestructible under κ-directed closed, (κ ⁺, ∞)-distributive forcing to be the same as the least supercompact cardinal, which has its supercompactness indestructible under κ-directed closed, (κ ⁺, ∞)-distributive forcing. It further follows as a corollary of the first of our forcing constructions that it is possible to build a model containing a supercompact cardinal κ in which no cardinal δ > κ is measurable, κ is indestructibly supercompact, and every measurable cardinal δ < κ which is not a limit of measurable cardinals is δ ⁺ strongly compact.     

Weakly measurable cardinals

In this article, we introduce the notion of weakly measurable cardinal, a new large cardinal concept obtained by weakening the familiar concept of a measurable cardinal. Specifically, a cardinal κ is weakly measurable if for any collection $\mathcal {A}$ containing at most κ⁺ many subsets of κ, there exists a nonprincipal κ‐complete filter on κ measuring all sets in $\mathcal {A}$. Every measurable cardinal is weakly measurable, but a weakly measurable cardinal need not be measurable. Moreover, while the GCH cannot fail first at a measurable cardinal, I will show that it can fail first at a weakly measurable cardinal. More generally, if κ is measurable, then we can make its weak measurability indestructible by the forcing Add(κ, η) for any η while forcing the GCH to hold below κ. Nevertheless, I shall prove that weakly measurable cardinals and measurable cardinals are equiconsistent. © 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim     

Lifting elementary embeddings <Emphasis Type="Italic">j</Emphasis>: <Emphasis Type="Italic">V</Emphasis><Subscript>λ</Subscript> → <Emphasis Type="Italic">V</Emphasis><Subscript>λ</Subscript>

We describe a fairly general procedure for preserving I₃ embeddings j: V _λ → V _λ via λ-stage reverse Easton iterated forcings. We use this method to prove that, assuming the consistency of an I₃ embedding, V = HOD is consistent with the theory ZFC + WA where WA is an axiom schema in the language {∈, j} asserting a strong but not inconsistent form of “there is an elementary embedding V → V”. This improves upon an earlier result in which consistency was established assuming an I₁ embedding.      

Supercompactness and level by level equivalence are compatible with indestructibility for strong compactness

It is known that if are such that κ is indestructibly supercompact and λ is 2^λ supercompact, then level by level equivalence between strong compactness and supercompactness fails. We prove a theorem which points towards this result being best possible. Specifically, we show that relative to the existence of a supercompact cardinal, there is a model for level by level equivalence between strong compactness and supercompactness containing a supercompact cardinal κ in which κ’s strong compactness is indestructible under κ-directed closed forcing. The author’s research was partially supported by PSC-CUNY Grant 66489-00-35 and a CUNY Collaborative Incentive Grant.     

Dynamics in coupled oscillators with recurrent/random forcing, a PDE approach

The current paper is devoted to the study of coupled oscillators with recurrent/random forcing. Special attention is given to the solutions having the same recurrence/randomness as that of the forcing (recurrent/random solutions for short). By embedding coupled oscillators into coupled parabolic equations, it establishes a general theorem on the existence of recurrent/random solutions. It also finds conditions under which such solutions are unique. When the recurrent forcing is actually quasi-periodic or almost periodic, recurrent solutions are refereed to as quasi-periodic or almost periodic solutions in a weak sense and they are quasi-periodic or almost periodic in the classical sense under the uniqueness conditions. In addition, applications of the general theory to coupled Duffing type oscillators and Josephson junctions are considered and the results obtained extend several existing ones for quasi-periodic Duffing oscillators.     

On forbidden configurations for strong posets

The concept of strong elements in posets is introduced. Several properties of strong elements in different types of posets are studied. Strong posets are characterized in terms of forbidden structures. It is shown that many of the classical results of lattice theory can be extended to posets. In particular, we give several characterizations of strongness for upper semimodular (USM) posets of finite length. We characterize modular pairs in USM posets of finite length and we investigate the interrelationships between consistence, strongness, and the property of being balanced in USM posets of finite length. In contrast to the situation in upper semimodular lattices, we show that these three concepts do not coincide in USM posets.     

2-restricted extensions of partial embeddings of graphs

Let K be a subgraph of G. Suppose that we have a 2-cell embedding of K in some surface and that for each K-bridge in G, one or two simple embeddings in faces of K are prescribed. Obstructions for existence of extensions of the embedding of K to an embedding of G are studied. It is shown that minimal obstructions possess certain combinatorial structure that can be described in an algebraic way by means of forcing chains of K-bridges. The geometric structure of minimal obstructions is also described. It is shown that they have “millipede” structure that was observed earlier in some special cases (disc, Möbius band). As a consequence it is proved that if one is allowed to reroute the branches of K, one can obtain a subgraph K′ of G homeomorphic to K for which an obstruction of bounded branch size exists. The precise combinatorial and geometric structure of corresponding obstructions can be used to get a linear time algorithm for either finding an embedding extension or discovering minimal obstructions.     

On certain indestructibility of strong cardinals and a question of Hajnal

A model in which strongness of is indestructible under ⁺ -weakly closed forcing notions satisfying the Prikry condition is constructed. This is applied to solve a question of Hajnal on the number of elements of { |2 <}.     

The emergence of large‐scale coherent structure under small‐scale random bombardments

We provide mathematical justification of the emergence of large‐scale coherent structure in a two‐dimensional fluid system under small‐scale random bombardments with small forcing and appropriate scaling assumptions. The analysis shows that the large‐scale structure emerging out of the small‐scale random forcing is not the one predicted by equilibrium statistical mechanics. But the error is very small, which explains earlier successful prediction of the large‐scale structure based on equilibrium statistical mechanics. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.