For a space X let $\mathcal {K}(X)$ be the set of compact subsets of X ordered by inclusion. A map $\phi :\mathcal {K}(X) \to \mathcal {K}(Y)$ is a relative Tukey quotient if it carries compact covers to compact covers. When there is such a Tukey quotient write $(X,\mathcal {K}(X)) \ge _T (Y,\mathcal {K}(Y))$, and write $(X,\mathcal {K}(X)) =_T (Y,\mathcal {K}(Y))$ if $(X,\mathcal {K}(X)) \ge _T (Y,\mathcal {K}(Y))$ and vice versa.

We investigate the initial structure of pairs $(X,\mathcal {K}(X))$ under the relative Tukey order, focussing on the case of separable metrizable spaces. Connections are made to Menger spaces.

Applications are given demonstrating the diversity of free topological groups, and related free objects, over separable metrizable spaces. It is shown a topological group G has the countable chain condition if it is either $\sigma $-pseudocompact or for some separable metrizable M, we have $\mathcal {K}(M) \ge _T (G,\mathcal {K}(G))$.

Cummings, Foreman, and Magidor proved that Jensen’s square principle is non-compact at $\aleph _\omega $, meaning that it is consistent that $\square _{\aleph _n}$ holds for all $n<\omega $ while $\square _{\aleph _\omega }$ fails. We investigate the natural question of whether this phenomenon generalizes to singulars of uncountable cofinality. Surprisingly, we show that under some mild ${{\mathsf {PCF}}}$-theoretic hypotheses, the weak square principle $\square _\kappa ^*$ is in fact compact at singulars of uncountable cofinality.

It is proved that for every positive integer n, the number of non-Tukey-equivalent directed sets of cardinality $\leq \aleph _n$ is at least $c_{n+2}$, the $(n+2)$-Catalan number. Moreover, the class $\mathcal D_{\aleph _n}$ of directed sets of cardinality $\leq \aleph _n$ contains an isomorphic copy of the poset of Dyck $(n+2)$-paths. Furthermore, we give a complete description whether two successive elements in the copy contain another directed set in between or not.

In an article published in 1974, Menas conjectured that any stationary subset of can be split in many pairwise disjoint stationary subsets. Even though the conjecture was shown long ago by Baumgartner and Taylor to be consistently false, it is still haunting papers on . In which situations does it hold? How much of it can be proven in ZFC? We start with an abridged history of the conjecture, then we formulate a new version of it, and finally we keep weakening this new assertion until, building on the work of Usuba, we hit something we can prove.

We show that Katětov and Rudin–Blass orders on summable tall ideals coincide. We prove that Katětov order on summable tall ideals is Galois–Tukey equivalent to $(\omega ^\omega ,\le ^*)$. It follows that Katětov order on summable tall ideals is upwards directed which answers a question of Minami and Sakai. In addition, we prove that ${l_\infty }$ is Borel bireducible to an equivalence relation induced by Katětov order on summable tall ideals.

We investigate pseudopowers of singular cardinals and deduce some consequences for covering numbers at singular cardinals of uncountable cofinality.

Let $\kappa $ be a regular uncountable cardinal, and a cardinal greater than or equal to $\kappa $ . Revisiting a celebrated result of Shelah, we show that if is close to $\kappa $ and (= the least size of a cofinal subset of ) is greater than , then can be represented (in the sense of pcf theory) as a pseudopower. This can be used to obtain optimal results concerning the splitting problem. For example we show that if and , then no $\kappa $ -complete ideal on is weakly -saturated.

We describe an organizing framework for the study of infinitary combinatorics. This framework is Čech cohomology. It describes ZFC principles distinguishing among the ordinals of the form $\omega _n$ . More precisely, this framework correlates each $\omega _n$ with an $(n+1)$ -dimensional generalization of Todorcevic’s walks technique, and begins to account for that technique’s “unreasonable effectiveness” on $\omega _1$ .

We show in contrast that on higher cardinals $\kappa $ , the existence of these principles is frequently independent of the ZFC axioms. Finally, we detail implications of these phenomena for the computation of strong homology groups and higher derived limits, deriving independence results in algebraic topology and homological algebra, respectively, in the process.

Abstract prepared by Jeffrey Bergfalk.

E-mail: jeffrey.bergfalk@univie.ac.at

We show that it is independent whether club $\kappa $ -Miller forcing preserves $\kappa ^{++}$ . We show that under $\kappa ^{<\kappa }> \kappa $ , club $\kappa $ -Miller forcing collapses $\kappa ^{<\kappa }$ to $\kappa $ . Answering a question by Brendle, Brooke-Taylor, Friedman and Montoya, we show that the iteration of ultrafilter $\kappa $ -Miller forcing does not have the Laver property.

We introduce a class of notions of forcing which we call $\Sigma $ -Prikry, and show that many of the known Prikry-type notions of forcing that centers around singular cardinals of countable cofinality are $\Sigma $ -Prikry. We show that given a $\Sigma $ -Prikry poset $\mathbb P$ and a name for a non-reflecting stationary set T, there exists a corresponding $\Sigma $ -Prikry poset that projects to $\mathbb P$ and kills the stationarity of T. Then, in a sequel to this paper, we develop an iteration scheme for $\Sigma $ -Prikry posets. Putting the two works together, we obtain a proof of the following.

Theorem. If $\kappa $ is the limit of a countable increasing sequence of supercompact cardinals, then there exists a forcing extension in which $\kappa $ remains a strong limit cardinal, every finite collection of stationary subsets of $\kappa ^+$ reflects simultaneously, and $2^\kappa =\kappa ^{++}$ .

We study the notion of tightly stationary sets which was introduced by Foreman and Magidor in [8]. We obtain two consistency results showing that certain sequences of regular cardinals ${\langle {\kappa _n}\rangle _{n < \omega }}$ can have the property that in some generic extension, every ground-model sequence of fixed-cofinality stationary sets ${S_n} \subseteq {\kappa _n}$ is tightly stationary. The results are obtained using variations of the short-extenders forcing method.

We continue our study of the class ${\cal C}\left( D \right)$, where D is a uniform ultrafilter on a cardinal κ and ${\cal C}\left( D \right)$ is the class of all pairs $\left( {{\theta _1},{\theta _2}} \right)$, where $\left( {{\theta _1},{\theta _2}} \right)$ is the cofinality of a cut in ${J^\kappa }/D$ and J is some ${\left( {{\theta _1} + {\theta _2}} \right)^ + }$-saturated dense linear order. We give a combinatorial characterization of the class ${\cal C}\left( D \right)$. We also show that if $\left( {{\theta _1},{\theta _2}} \right) \in {\cal C}\left( D \right)$ and D is ${\aleph _1}$-complete or ${\theta _1} + {\theta _2} > {2^\kappa }$, then ${\theta _1} = {\theta _2}$.

We develop a version of Namba forcing which is useful for constructing models with no good scale on ℵω. A model is produced in which holds for all finite n ≥ 1, but there is no good scale on ℵω; this strengthens a theorem of Cummings, Foreman, and Magidor [3] on the non-compactness of square.

We throw some light on the question: is there a MAD family (a maximal family of infinite subsets of $\mathbb{N}$, the intersection of any two is finite) that is saturated (=completely separable i.e., any $X\,\subseteq \,\mathbb{N}$ is included in a finite union of members of the family or includes a member (and even continuum many members) of the family). We prove that it is hard to prove the consistency of the negation:

(i) if ${{2}^{{{\aleph }_{0}}}}\,<\,{{\aleph }_{\omega }}$, then there is such a family;

(ii) if there is no such family, then some situation related to pcf holds whose consistency is large (and if ${{a}_{*}}\,>\,{{\aleph }_{1}}$ even unknown);

(iii) if, e.g., there is no inner model with measurables, then there is such a family.