English

Saturation of reduced products

Logic 2024-01-24 v1

Abstract

We study reduced products M=nMn/FinM=\prod_n M_n/\mathrm{Fin} of countable structures in a countable language associated with the Fr\'echet ideal. We prove that such MM is 202^{\aleph_0}-saturated if its theory is stable and not 2\aleph_2-saturated otherwise (regardless of whether the Continuum Hypothesis holds). This implies that MM is isomorphic to an ultrapower (associated with an ultrafilter on N\mathbb N) if its theory is stable, even if the CH fails. We also improve a result of Farah and Shelah and prove that there is a forcing extension in which such reduced product MM is isomorphic to an ultrapower if and only if the theory of MM is stable. All of these conclusions apply for reduced products associated with FσF_\sigma ideals or more general layered ideals. We also prove that a reduced product associated with the asymptotic density zero ideal Z0\mathcal Z_0, or any other analytic P-ideal that is not FσF_\sigma, is not even 1\aleph_1-saturated if its theory is unstable.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.12539,
  title  = {Saturation of reduced products},
  author = {Ben De Bondt and Ilijas Farah and Alessandro Vignati},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.12539},
  year   = {2024}
}

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32 pages