Ultrafilters play a significant role in model theory to characterize logics having various compactness and interpolation properties. They also provide a general method to construct extensions of first-order logic having these properties. A main result of this paper is that every class $\Omega $ of uniform ultrafilters generates a $\Delta $-closed logic ${\mathcal {L}}_\Omega $. ${\mathcal {L}}_\Omega $ is $\omega $-relatively compact iff some $D\in \Omega $ fails to be $\omega _1$-complete iff ${\mathcal {L}}_\Omega $ does not contain the quantifier “there are uncountably many.” If $\Omega $ is a set, or if it contains a countably incomplete ultrafilter, then ${\mathcal {L}}_\Omega $ is not generated by Mostowski cardinality quantifiers. Assuming $\neg 0^\sharp $ or $\neg L^{\mu }$, if $D\in \Omega $ is a uniform ultrafilter over a regular cardinal $\nu $, then every family $\Psi $ of formulas in ${\mathcal {L}}_\Omega $ with $|\Phi |\leq \nu $ satisfies the compactness theorem. In particular, if $\Omega $ is a proper class of uniform ultrafilters over regular cardinals, ${\mathcal {L}}_\Omega $ is compact.

We introduce self-divisible ultrafilters, which we prove to be precisely those $w$ such that the weak congruence relation $\equiv _w$ introduced by Šobot is an equivalence relation on $\beta {\mathbb Z}$. We provide several examples and additional characterisations; notably we show that $w$ is self-divisible if and only if $\equiv _w$ coincides with the strong congruence relation $\mathrel {\equiv ^{\mathrm {s}}_{w}}$, if and only if the quotient $(\beta {\mathbb Z},\oplus )/\mathord {\mathrel {\equiv ^{\mathrm {s}}_{w}}}$ is a profinite group. We also construct an ultrafilter $w$ such that $\equiv _w$ fails to be symmetric, and describe the interaction between the aforementioned quotient and the profinite completion $\hat {{\mathbb Z}}$ of the integers.

We construct a nonseparable Banach space $\mathcal {X}$ (actually, of density continuum) such that any uncountable subset $\mathcal {Y}$ of the unit sphere of $\mathcal {X}$ contains uncountably many points distant by less than $1$ (in fact, by less then $1-\varepsilon $ for some $\varepsilon>0$). This solves in the negative the central problem of the search for a nonseparable version of Kottman’s theorem which so far has produced many deep positive results for special classes of Banach spaces and has related the global properties of the spaces to the distances between points of uncountable subsets of the unit sphere. The property of our space is strong enough to imply that it contains neither an uncountable Auerbach system nor an uncountable equilateral set. The space is a strictly convex renorming of the Johnson–Lindenstrauss space induced by an $\mathbb {R}$-embeddable almost disjoint family of subsets of $\mathbb {N}$. We also show that this special feature of the almost disjoint family is essential to obtain the above properties.

We examine a semigroup analogue of the Kumjian–Renault representation of C*-algebras with Cartan subalgebras on twisted groupoids. Specifically, we represent semigroups with distinguished normal subsemigroups as ‘slice-sections’ of groupoid bundles.

We continue the research of the relation $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }\hspace {1mm}$ on the set $\beta \mathbb {N}$ of ultrafilters on $\mathbb {N}$ , defined as an extension of the divisibility relation. It is a quasiorder, so we see it as an order on the set of $=_{\sim }$ -equivalence classes, where $\mathcal {F}=_{\sim }\mathcal {G}$ means that $\mathcal {F}$ and $\mathcal {G}$ are mutually $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }$ -divisible. Here we introduce a new tool: a relation of congruence modulo an ultrafilter. We first recall the congruence of ultrafilters modulo an integer and show that $=_{\sim }$ -equivalent ultrafilters do not necessarily have the same residue modulo $m\in \mathbb {N}$ . Then we generalize this relation to congruence modulo an ultrafilter in a natural way. After that, using iterated nonstandard extensions, we introduce a stronger relation, which has nicer properties with respect to addition and multiplication of ultrafilters. Finally, we introduce a strengthening of $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }\hspace {1mm}$ and show that it also behaves well with respect to the congruence relation.

We establish that the existence of a winning strategy in certain topological games, closely related to a strong game of Choquet, played in a topological space $X$ and its hyperspace $K(X)$ of all nonempty compact subsets of $X$ equipped with the Vietoris topology, is equivalent for one of the players. For a separable metrizable space $X$, we identify a game-theoretic condition equivalent to $K(X)$ being hereditarily Baire. It implies quite easily a recent result of Gartside, Medini and Zdomskyy that characterizes hereditary Baire property of hyperspaces $K(X)$ over separable metrizable spaces $X$ via the Menger property of the remainder of a compactification of $X$. Subsequently, we use topological games to study hereditary Baire property in spaces of probability measures and in hyperspaces over filters on natural numbers. To this end, we introduce a notion of strong $P$-filter ${\mathcal{F}}$ and prove that it is equivalent to $K({\mathcal{F}})$ being hereditarily Baire. We also show that if $X$ is separable metrizable and $K(X)$ is hereditarily Baire, then the space $P_{r}(X)$ of Borel probability Radon measures on $X$ is hereditarily Baire too. It follows that there exists (in ZFC) a separable metrizable space $X$, which is not completely metrizable with $P_{r}(X)$ hereditarily Baire. As far as we know, this is the first example of this kind.

We show in ZFC that the existence of completely separable maximal almost disjoint families of subsets of $\omega $ implies that the modal logic $\mathbf {S4.1.2}$ is complete with respect to the Čech–Stone compactification of the natural numbers, the space $\beta \omega $ . In the same fashion we prove that the modal logic $\mathbf {S4}$ is complete with respect to the space $\omega ^*=\beta \omega \setminus \omega $ . This improves the results of G. Bezhanishvili and J. Harding in [4], where the authors prove these theorems under stronger assumptions ( $\mathfrak {a=c}$ ). Our proof is also somewhat simpler.

A union ultrafilter is an ultrafilter over the finite subsets of ω that has a base of sets of the form ${\text{FU}}\left( X \right)$, where X is an infinite pairwise disjoint family and ${\text{FU}}(X) = \left\{ {\bigcup {F|F} \in [X]^{ < \omega } \setminus \{ \emptyset \} } \right\}$. The existence of these ultrafilters is not provable from the $ZFC$ axioms, but is known to follow from the assumption that ${\text{cov}}\left( \mathcal{M} \right) = \mathfrak{c}$. In this article we obtain various models of $ZFC$ that satisfy the existence of union ultrafilters while at the same time ${\text{cov}}\left( \mathcal{M} \right) = \mathfrak{c}$.

It is proved that the Continuum Hypothesis implies that any sequence of rapid P-points of length ${<}\mathfrak{c}^{+}$ that is increasing with respect to the Rudin–Keisler ordering is bounded above by a rapid P-point. This is an improvement of a result from B. Kuzeljevic and D. Raghavan. It is also proved that Jensen’s diamond principle implies the existence of an unbounded strictly increasing sequence of P-points of length $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}_{1}$ in the Rudin–Keisler ordering. This shows that restricting to the class of rapid P-points is essential for the first result.

Ellis’ Theorem (i.e., “every compact Hausdorff right topological semigroup has an idempotent element”) is known to be proved only under the assumption of the full Axiom of Choice (AC); AC is used in the proof in the disguise of Zorn’s Lemma.

In this article, we prove that in ZF, Ellis’ Theorem follows from the Boolean Prime Ideal Theorem (BPI), and hence is strictly weaker than AC in ZF. In fact, we establish that BPI implies the formally stronger (than Ellis’ Theorem) statement “for every family ${\cal A} = \{ ({S_i},{ \cdot _i},{{\cal T}_i}):i \in I\}$ of nontrivial compact Hausdorff right topological semigroups, there exists a function f with domain I such that $f\left( i \right)$ is an idempotent of ${S_i}$, for all $i \in I$”, which in turn implies ACfin (i.e., AC for sets of nonempty finite sets).

Furthermore, we prove that in ZFA, the Axiom of Multiple Choice (MC) implies Ellis’ Theorem for abelian semigroups (i.e., “every compact Hausdorff right topological abelian semigroup has an idempotent element”) and that the strictly weaker than MC (in ZFA) principle LW (i.e., “every linearly ordered set can be well-ordered”) implies Ellis’ Theorem for linearly orderable semigroups (i.e., “every compact Hausdorff right topological linearly orderable semigroup has an idempotent element”); thus the latter formally weaker versions of Ellis’ Theorem are strictly weaker than BPI in ZFA. Yet, it is shown that no choice is required in order to prove Ellis’ Theorem for well-orderable semigroups.

We also show that each one of the (strictly weaker than AC) statements “the Tychonoff product $2^{\Cal R} $ is compact and Loeb” and $BPI_{\Cal R}$ (BPI for filters on ${\Cal R}$) implies “there exists a free idempotent ultrafilter on ω” (which in turn is not provable in ZF). Moreover, we prove that the latter statement does not imply $BP{I_\omega }$ (BPI for filters on ω) in ZF, hence it does not imply any of $AC_{\Cal R} $ (AC for sets of nonempty sets of reals) and $BPI_{\Cal R} $ in ZF, either.

In addition, we prove that the statements “there exists a free ultrafilter on ω”, “there exists a free ultrafilter on ω which is not idempotent”, and “for every IP set $A \subseteq \omega$, there exists a free ultrafilter ${\cal F}$ on ω such that $A \in {\cal F}$” are pairwise equivalent in ZF.

We answer two questions of Hindman, Steprāns, and Strauss; namely, we prove that every strongly summable ultrafilter on an abelian group is sparse and has the trivial sums property. Moreover, we show that in most cases the sparseness of the given ultrafilter is a consequence of its being isomorphic to a union ultrafilter. However, this does not happen in all cases; we also construct (assuming Martin's Axiom for countable partial orders, i.e., $\operatorname{cov}\left( \text{M} \right)=\mathfrak{c})$, a strongly summable ultrafilter on the Boolean group that is not additively isomorphic to any union ultrafilter.

We explore the cardinality of generalised inverse limits. Among other things, we show that, for any $n\in \{ℵ_{0},c,1,2,3,\dots \}$, there is an upper semicontinuous function with the inverse limit having exactly $n$ points. We also prove that if $f$ is an upper semicontinuous function whose graph is a continuum, then the cardinality of the corresponding inverse limit is either 1, $ℵ_{0}$ or $c$. This generalises the recent result of I. Banič and J. Kennedy, which claims that the same is true in the case where the graph is an arc.

Let $G$ be an infinite discrete group and let $\beta G$ be the Stone-Čech compactification of $G$. We take the points of $\beta G$ to be the ultrafilters on $G$, identifying the principal ultrafilters with the points of $G$. The set $U\left( G \right)$ of uniform ultrafilters on $G$ is a closed two-sided ideal of $\beta G$. For every $p\,\in \,U\left( G \right)$, define ${{I}_{p}}\,\subseteq \,\beta G$ by ${{I}_{p}}\,=\,{{\bigcap }_{A\in p}}\text{cl}\left( GU\left( A \right) \right)$, where $U\left( A \right)\,=\,\left\{ p\,\in \,U\left( G \right)\,:\,A\in \,p \right\}$. We show that if $\left| G \right|$ is a regular cardinal, then $\left\{ {{I}_{p}}\,:\,p\,\in \,U\left( G \right) \right\}$ is the finest decomposition of $U\left( G \right)$ into closed left ideals of $\beta G$ such that the corresponding quotient space of $U\left( G \right)$ is Hausdorff.

To each filter ℱ on ω, a certain linear subalgebra A(ℱ) of Rω, the countable product of lines, is assigned. This algebra is shown to have many interesting topological properties, depending on the properties of the filter ℱ. For example, if ℱ is a free ultrafilter, then A(ℱ) is a Baire subalgebra of ℱω for which the game OF introduced by Tkachenko is undetermined (this resolves a problem of Hernández, Robbie and Tkachenko); and if ℱ1 and ℱ2 are two free filters on ω that are not near coherent (such filters exist under Martin's Axiom), then A (ℱ1) and A(ℱ2) are two o-bounded and OF-undetermined subalgebras of ℱω whose product A(ℱ1) × A(ℱ2) is OF-determined and not o-bounded (this resolves a problem of Tkachenko). It is also shown that the statement that the product of two o-bounded subrings of ℱω is o-bounded is equivalent to the set-theoretic principle NCF (Near Coherence of Filters); this suggests that Tkachenko's question on the productivity of the class of o-bounded topological groups may be undecidable in ZFC.