English

Infima and cardinal characteristics of critical ideals for countable compact spaces

Logic 2026-03-03 v1 General Topology

Abstract

For each countable ordinal α2\alpha \ge 2, the ideals convα\mathsf{conv}_\alpha were introduced in ``Critical ideals for countable compact spaces'' (to appear in Fund. Math., see also arXiv:2503.12571) to characterize compact countable spaces homeomorphic to ωαn+1\omega^\alpha \cdot n+1 with the order topology. We study the structure of these ideals in the Kat\v{e}tov order, namely for limit ordinals α\alpha, we show that convα\mathsf{conv}_{\alpha} do not serve as greatest lower bounds of the convβ\mathsf{conv}_\beta for β<α\beta<\alpha. We therefore define the ideals conv<α\mathsf{conv}_{<\alpha} with this property and show that together, the ideals convα\mathsf{conv}_\alpha and conv<α\mathsf{conv}_{<\alpha} form intertwined decreasing hierarchies of Σ40\Sigma^0_4- and Π50\Pi^0_5-complete ideals. Furthermore, we examine several cardinal invariants of convα\mathsf{conv}_\alpha, computing invariants that have recently appeared in the literature in various contexts.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.00674,
  title  = {Infima and cardinal characteristics of critical ideals for countable compact spaces},
  author = {Malgorzata Kowalczuk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.00674},
  year   = {2026}
}