There is a balance between the amount of (weak) indestructibility one can have and the amount of strong cardinals. It’s consistent relative to large cardinals to have lots of strong cardinals and all of their degrees of strength are weakly indestructible. But this necessitates the destructibility of the partially strong cardinals. Guaranteeing the indestructibility of the partially strong cardinals is shown to be harder. In particular, this work establishes an equiconsistency between:

1. 1. a proper class of cardinals that are strong reflecting strongs; and

2. 2. weak indestructibility for (κ+2)-strength for all cardinals κ in the presence of a proper class of strong cardinals.

1. 3. weak indestructibility for all degrees of strength for a proper class of strong cardinals.

One direction of the equiconsistency of (1) and (2) is proven using forcing and the other using core model techniques from inner model theory. Additionally, connections between weak indestructibility and the reflection properties associated with Woodin cardinals are discussed, and similar results are derived for supercompacts and supercompacts reflecting supercompacts.

Abstract prepared by James Holland.

E-mail: jch258@scarletmail.rutgers.edu

URL: https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~jch258/assets/dis.pdf

We establish an equiconsistency between (1) weak indestructibility for all $\kappa +2$-degrees of strength for cardinals $\kappa $ in the presence of a proper class of strong cardinals, and (2) a proper class of cardinals that are strong reflecting strongs. We in fact get weak indestructibility for degrees of strength far beyond $\kappa +2$, well beyond the next inaccessible limit of measurables (of the ground model). One direction is proven using forcing and the other using core model techniques from inner model theory. Additionally, connections between weak indestructibility and the reflection properties associated with Woodin cardinals are discussed. This work is a part of my upcoming thesis [7].

We prove two theorems concerning indestructibility properties of the first two strongly compact cardinals when these cardinals are in addition the first two measurable cardinals. Starting from two supercompact cardinals $\kappa _1 < \kappa _2$ , we force and construct a model in which $\kappa _1$ and $\kappa _2$ are both the first two strongly compact and first two measurable cardinals, $\kappa _1$ ’s strong compactness is fully indestructible (i.e., $\kappa _1$ ’s strong compactness is indestructible under arbitrary $\kappa _1$ -directed closed forcing), and $\kappa _2$ ’s strong compactness is indestructible under $\mathrm {Add}(\kappa _2, \delta )$ for any ordinal $\delta $ . This provides an answer to a strengthened version of a question of Sargsyan found in [17, Question 5]. We also investigate indestructibility properties that may occur when the first two strongly compact cardinals are not only the first two measurable cardinals, but also exhibit nontrivial degrees of supercompactness.

In the first part of the article, we show that if $\omega \le \kappa < \lambda$ are cardinals, ${\kappa ^{ < \kappa }} = \kappa$, and λ is weakly compact, then in $V\left[M {\left( {\kappa ,\lambda } \right)} \right]$ the tree property at $$\lambda = \left( {\kappa ^{ + + } } \right)^{V\left[ {\left( {\kappa ,\lambda } \right)} \right]} $$ is indestructible under all ${\kappa ^ + }$-cc forcing notions which live in $V\left[ {{\rm{Add}}\left( {\kappa ,\lambda } \right)} \right]$, where ${\rm{Add}}\left( {\kappa ,\lambda } \right)$ is the Cohen forcing for adding λ-many subsets of κ and $\left( {\kappa ,\lambda } \right)$ is the standard Mitchell forcing for obtaining the tree property at $\lambda = \left( {\kappa ^{ + + } } \right)^{V\left[ {\left( {\kappa ,\lambda } \right)} \right]} $. This result has direct applications to Prikry-type forcing notions and generalized cardinal invariants. In the second part, we assume that λ is supercompact and generalize the construction and obtain a model ${V^{\rm{*}}}$, a generic extension of V, in which the tree property at ${\left( {{\kappa ^{ + + }}} \right)^{{V^{\rm{*}}}}}$ is indestructible under all ${\kappa ^ + }$-cc forcing notions living in $V\left[ {{\rm{Add}}\left( {\kappa ,\lambda } \right)} \right]$, and in addition under all forcing notions living in ${V^{\rm{*}}}$ which are ${\kappa ^ + }$-closed and “liftable” in a prescribed sense (such as ${\kappa ^{ + + }}$-directed closed forcings or well-met forcings which are ${\kappa ^{ + + }}$-closed with the greatest lower bounds).

We obtain an equiconsistency for a weak form of universal indestructibility for strongness. The equiconsistency is relative to a cardinal weaker in consistency strength than a Woodin cardinal, Stewart Baldwin's notion of hyperstrong cardinal. We also briefly indicate how our methods are applicable to universal indestructibility for supercompactness and strong compactness.

I provide indestructibility results for large cardinals consistent with V = L, such as weakly compact, indescribable and strongly unfoldable cardinals. The Main Theorem shows that any strongly unfoldable cardinal κ can be made indestructible by <κ-closed, κ-proper forcing. This class of posets includes for instance all <κ-closed posets that are either κ−-c.c. or <κ-strategically closed as well as finite iterations of such posets. Since strongly unfoldable cardinals strengthen both indescribable and weakly compact cardinals, the Main Theorem therefore makes these two large cardinal notions similarly indestructible. Finally. I apply the Main Theorem to obtain a class forcing extension preserving all strongly unfoldable cardinals in which every strongly unfoldable cardinal κ is indestructible by <κ-closed, κ-proper forcing.

We summarize the known methods of producing a non-supercompact strongly compact cardinal and describe some new variants. Our Main Theorem shows how to apply these methods to many cardinals simultaneously and exactly control which cardinals are supercompact and which are only strongly compact in a forcing extension. Depending upon the method, the surviving non-supercompact strongly compact cardinals can be strong cardinals, have trivial Mitchell rank or even contain a club disjoint from the set of measurable cardinals. These results improve and unify Theorems 1 and 2 of [5], due to the first author.

Can a supercompact cardinal κ be Laver indestructible when there is a level-by-level agreement between strong compactness and supercompactness? In this article, we show that if there is a sufficiently large cardinal above κ, then no, it cannot. Conversely, if one weakens the requirement either by demanding less indestructibility, such as requiring only indestructibility by stratified posets. or less level-by-level agreement, such as requiring it only on measure one sets, then yes. it can.