English

Was Ulam right? II: Small width and general ideals

Logic 2023-12-19 v2

Abstract

We continue our study of Sierpinski-type colourings. In contrast to the prequel paper, we focus here on colourings for ideals stratified by their completeness degree. In particular, improving upon Ulam's theorem and its extension by Hajnal, it is proved that if κ\kappa is a regular uncountable cardinal that is not weakly compact in L, then there is a universal witness for non-weak-saturation of κ\kappa-complete ideals. Specifically, there are κ\kappa-many decompositions of κ\kappa such that, for every κ\kappa-complete ideal JJ over κ\kappa, and every BJ+B\in J^+, one of the decompositions shatters BB into κ\kappa-many J+J^+-sets. A second focus here is the feature of narrowness of colourings, one already present in the theorem of Sierpinski. This feature ensures that a colouring suitable for an ideal is also suitable for all superideals possessing the requisite completeness degree. It is proved that unlike successors of regulars, every successor of a singular cardinal admits such a narrow colouring.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2203.05615,
  title  = {Was Ulam right? II: Small width and general ideals},
  author = {Tanmay Inamdar and Assaf Rinot},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.05615},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Final version

R2 v1 2026-06-24T10:09:17.493Z