1. Infinitary Jónsson algebras
Once again, assume choice throughout. Last lecture, we showed that for any
The results below strengthen this fact in several ways.
Definition 1 Let
be a set. A function
is
-Jónsson for
iff for all
if
then
![]()
Actually, for a cardinal, the examples to follow usually satisfy the stronger requirement that
In the notation from Definition 16 from last lecture,
The following result was originally proved in 1966 with a significantly more elaborate argument. The proof below, from 1976, is due to Galvin and Prikry.
Theorem 2 (Erdös-Hajnal) For any infinite
there is an
-Jónsson function for
![]()
Proof: It is enough to show that for all infinite cardinals
Define a version of the equivalence relation on
by setting
iff there is some
such that
Choose a representative
from each
-equivalence class
For
let
and let
be least such that
(Note that needs not be in
and that it needs not be the least
such that
)
Consider the function Although
may fail to be
-Jónsson, we claim that it has the following property: There is an
such that for any
It is obvious one can now use
and a bijection between
and
to define an
-Jónsson function for
To see the claim, assume otherwise and use this to define recursively a sequence as follows:
-
Pick
such that there is some
- Given
(of size
) and
let
be such that there is some
It follows that is strictly increasing,
is strictly decreasing, and for all
Now let and
Let
be least such that
for some and fix such
Note that
and
so
It follows that
contradiction.
In a few particular cases, direct proofs are also possible, and I discuss a few below, before exploring generalizations.
I begin with a result of Solovay. We need a preliminary lemma, generalizing Ulam’s Theorem 13 from lecture II.5 that stationary subsets of can be split into
many stationary subsets:
Theorem 3 (Solovay) Any stationary subset of a regular cardinal
can be split into
many disjoint stationary sets.
Proof: Let be regular and
be stationary, and set
or
We claim that is stationary. To see this, let
be an arbitrary club subset of
Then the set
of limit points of
is also club (and a subset of
), so it meets
since
is stationary. Let
Then either
has cofinality
so it is in
or else it has uncountable cofinality. In that case, notice that since
it is a limit of points in
so
is club in
and therefore
is also club in
Were
stationary in
it would meet
and this would contradict the minimality of
It follows that
and therefore
is stationary, as wanted.
Let now be an arbitrary point of
If
has cofinality
it is the limit of an
-sequence of successor ordinals. Let
be the increasing enumeration of this sequence, and notice that
since all ordinals in
are limit ordinals. Suppose now that
has uncountable cofinality, so
is not stationary in
Since
it follows that
is not stationary either, so there is a club subset of
disjoint from
and let
be the increasing enumeration of this club set so, again,
With the sequences defined as above for all
we now claim that there is some
such that for all
the set
is stationary. The proof is by contradiction, assuming that no is as wanted.
It follows then that for all there is some
such that the set
as above is non-stationary. Fix a club
disjoint from it, and let
be the club
Let
where
Notice that
is club, and so is
We claim that
This contradicts that
is stationary, and therefore there must be a
as claimed.
Suppose then that are points in
Since
then
so
(hence,
) for all
We claim that
To see this, let
Then (by definition of
),
Since
then
and, since
then
It follows that
Since
is cofinal in
we must necessarily have
Since is continuous and
is a limit ordinal (since it is in
), it follows that
But, since
is increasing, then also
Hence,
We have finally reached a contradiction, because
but the sequence
was chosen so its range is disjoint from
This proves that
which of course is a contradiction since
is stationary. It follows that indeed there is some
such that all the sets
are stationary for all
Now let be the map
Clearly, is regressive. Also, from the definition of
it follows that
for all so
is unbounded in
since each
is in fact stationary, as we showed above. Given any
since
is regressive, there is some
(necessarily,
) such that
is stationary, by Fodor’s lemma. A simple induction allows us to define a strictly increasing sequence
such that
is stationary for all
Notice that these
many subsets of
(hence, of
) so defined are all disjoint. By adding to one of them whatever (if anything) remains of
after removing all these sets, we obtain a partition of
into
many disjoint stationary subsets, as wanted.
Theorem 4 (Solovay) Let
be a regular uncountable cardinal. Then
In fact, for any infinite regular
![]()
even if we consider
as an order type.
Proof: Let be a partition of
into stationary sets, and let
be given by
the unique
such that
Then
is as required, i.e.,
for any
To see this, let and set
Then
is a
-club subset of
so, for all
Hence
For we can in fact show something stronger:
Theorem 5 (
-Hajnal) For any infinite cardinal
![]()
i.e., there is a map
such that for any
![]()
![]()
Proof: Let enumerate
in such a way that each set is listed
many times. Inductively define
so that
and
for all
Let and set
if
for all
We claim that is as wanted. Because given any
and
if we let
be the
-st occurrence of
in the sequence
then
and
This can be generalized thanks to the following strengthening of its core idea.
Lemma 6 (Galvin-Prikry) For every infinite cardinal
and every
there is an injective function
such that
for all
and
(Here,
is treated as a cardinal rather than an order type.)
Proof: If as in Theorem 5, a straightforward transfinite induction suffices to find
For general let
enumerate
For
let
be injective and such that
for all
and
Now, given and
let
be the least
such that
and define
Then and
It follows that if
say, then there is an ordinal
such that
Therefore
and
Since
is 1-1, we conclude that
and
But then
as well, and
is 1-1.
Corollary 7 (Galvin-Prikry) If
and
are cardinals and
is infinite, then
![]()
Proof: Let be as in Lemma 6 with
Since
is 1-1, we can define
so that
for all
and
But then
The same idea gives us -Jónsson functions for some singular cardinals, as shown by Kunen in this argument from 1971.
Proof: Let enumerate
By transfinite recursion define
such that
for all
This is possible, because there are
elements of
and
Now let
be such that
for
and
if
is not an
To see that is
-Jónsson, let
Let
so
The result follows.
This gives us another proof of Kunen’s inconsistency Theorem 13 from lectures II.10 and II.12.
Proof: Argue by contradiction. As usual, let be the first fixed point of
past its critical point
If
then elementarity implies that
is a strong limit cardinal for all
so
is a singular strong limit cardinal of cofinality
and, by Theorem 8, there is an
-Jónsson function
If
then by elementarity there is some
such that
But then
for some
and
is in the range of
Of course,
cannot then be the critical point of
and we are done.
For one can further strengthen Corollary 7 as follows.
Theorem 10 (Galvin-Prikry) For any set
there is a function
such that whenever
and
then
and for any
-sequence
of pairwise disjoint sets in
and any
there is a sequence
with
for all
and
![]()
Proof: In fact, we build so that
-
only depends on
for any
and
- Whenever
is a sequence of pairwise disjoint finite subsets of
such that
is infinite, and
then there is a sequence
with
for all
is infinite, and
To do this, use Zorn’s lemma to find a maximal sequence of pairwise almost disjoint elements of
For each
being countable, it is easy to find a function
satisfying the two conditions above with
in place of
Now, given set
where
is least such that
is infinite. It is now easy to check that
is as wanted.
A variant of Lemma 6 gives us the following:
Lemma 11 (Galvin-Prikry) Given an infinite cardinal
and a set
there is an injective function
such that
and
is a singleton for all
and
![]()
Proof: It suffices to argue when and the general case is then handled as in the proof of Lemma 6.
Let be an injective enumeration of
Note that
for all
One can easily find
such that
is injective,
and
is a singleton for all
We can then take
Corollary 12 For all infinite cardinals
and all sets
there is a function
such that
for al
![]()
Proof: With as above, let
satisfy
for all
and
We now proceed to show that one can `lift’ exponents and relax the requirements a bit, while still obtaining infinitary Jónsson algebras. We will repeatedly use the following lemma.
Lemma 13 Let
be an infinite cardinal and let
and
be sets, with
Given
there is a function
such that
for all
![]()
Proof: Use Lemma 6 to find an injective such that
for all
and
Choose injections for all
Now define so that
for all
and
Proof: Let witness
Define as follows: Given
let
By Lemma 13, we can then find
such that
for all
But
so in fact
for all
with
Now consider It follows that
so
witnesses
Recall that means that whenever
there is some
and
Proof: Clearly, implies
Suppose now that and let
be a witness. We need to show that
We may assume that
and that
by Corollary 7.
By Theorem 2 and Corollary 14, Let
be a witness, and define
by
for all
Use Lemma 13 to find a function such that
for all
Hence the same holds for all
and since
for all such
then
It follows that
witnesses
Corollary 16 If
then
![]()
Proof: For any any injective
witnesses
Take
and apply Theorem 15.
Proof: Let witness
and
witness
Let be given by
for all
and find
with
for all such
As before, we also have
for all
But, for any such
and therefore
and it follows that
witnesses
Galvin and Prikry point out that one could define a relation by
iff
and then Theorem 17 could be read as saying that
is transitive.
Corollary 18 If
and
then, in fact,
![]()
Proof: As mentioned in the proof of Corollary 14, one always has In particular,
By transitivity,
Proof: We may of course assume and
By Corollary 7, we may also assume that
Clearly,
By transitivity,
Proof: By Theorem 15 and Corollary 19, iff
which implies
or, equivalently,
The reverse implication is clear.
Definition 21 (Kunen) For
an infinite cardinal, let
be the statement that for all functions
there is an infinite set
such that
![]()
Kunen showed that implies that
and that the assertion that
holds for some
is of large cardinal character, in the sense that it implies that for all
there is an inner model with at least (order type)
many measurable cardinals.
Corollary 22 If
and
then
holds.
Proof: By Corollaries 14 and 20, is equivalent to
which implies
which implies
.
It is a question of and Hajnal whether
can ever hold. As far as I know, this is still open (I would be glad to hear of any updates). On the other hand, the existence of some
such that
is consistent.
Theorem 23 (Kunen) If
is a
-supercompact cardinal, then
![]()
Proof: Fix an elementary with critical point
such that
and let
Let As in the proof of Corollary 9,
Also,
By elementarity, there is some
such that
Theorem 24 (Galvin-Prikry) Let
and
be infinite cardinals, with
singular. Suppose that
for all
Then also
![]()
Proof: Let and fix a strictly increasing sequence
of cardinals cofinal in
Let
witness
and for all
let
witness
Let be given by
for all Let
be such that
for all such
We claim that
witnesses
Let and
Then there is some
with
There must then be some
such that
and some
such that
and it follows that
This shows that
and we are done.
Bibliography
Here are some references consulted while preparing this note:
- Fred Galvin, Karel Prikry, Borel sets and Ramsey’s theorem, The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 38 (2) (Jun., 1973), 193–198.
- Fred Galvin, Karel Prikry, Infinitary Jonsson algebras and partition relations, Algebra Universalis, 6 (1976), 367–376.
- Akihiro Kanamori, The higher infinite, Springer (1994).
- Kenneth Kunen, Elementary embeddings and infinitary combinatorics, The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 36 (3), (Sep., 1971), 407–413.
Typeset using LaTeX2WP. Here is a printable version of this post.
[…] I want to present some significant strengthenings of the results above. The results from last lecture exploit the fact that a great deal of coding can be carried out with infinitely many coordinates. […]
[…] are no embeddings All the known proofs of this result (see for example lectures II.10, II.12, and III.3) use the axiom of choice in an essential way. Theorem 27 (Sargsyan) In assume there is an […]
[…] I also want to give an update on the topics discussed in lecture III.3. […]
[…] I also want to give an update on the topics discussed in lecture III.3. […]
[…] are no embeddings All the known proofs of this result (see for example lectures II.10, II.12, and III.3) use the axiom of choice in an essential way. Theorem 27 (Sargsyan) In assume there is an […]
[…] I want to present some significant strengthenings of the results above. The results from last lecture exploit the fact that a great deal of coding can be carried out with infinitely many coordinates. […]