Related papers: Selective independence
While maximal independent families can be constructed from ZFC via Zorn's lemma, the presence of a maximal $\sigma$-independent family already gives an inner model with a measurable cardinal, and Kunen has shown that from a measurable…
We show that after forcing with a countable support iteration or a finite product of Sacks or splitting forcing over $L$, every analytic hypergraph on a Polish space admits a $\mathbf{\Delta}^1_2$ maximal independent set. As a main…
Let M denote the ideal of first category subsets of R. We prove that min{card X: X \subseteq R, X \not\in M} is the smallest cardinality of a family S \subseteq {0,1}^\omega with the property that for each f: \omega -> \bigcup_{n \in…
The second author has recently shown ([20]) that any selectively (a) almost disjoint family must have cardinality strictly less than $2^{\alpeh_0}$, so under the Continuum Hypothesis such a family is necessarily countable. However, it is…
Let $G$ be a nontrivial connected graph with vertex set $V(G)$. A set of vertices $D\subseteq V(G)$ is called a total outer-independent dominating set of $G$ if every vertex of $G$ is adjacent to at least one vertex in $D$, and…
The goal of this paper is to obtain quantitative results on the number and on the size of maximal independent sets and maximal matchings in several block-stable graph classes that satisfy a proper sub-criticality condition. In particular we…
From many supercompact cardinals, we show that it is consistent for the tree property to hold at many small successors of singular cardinals, each with a different cofinality. In particular, we construct a model in which the tree property…
Given an uncountable cardinal $\kappa$, we consider the question of whether subsets of the power set of $\kappa$ that are usually constructed with the help of the Axiom of Choice are definable by $\Sigma_1$-formulas that only use the…
For a cardinal $\mathfrak{a}$, let $\mathrm{fin}(\mathfrak{a})$ be the cardinality of the set of all finite subsets of a set which is of cardinality $\mathfrak{a}$. It is proved without the aid of the axiom of choice that for all infinite…
We investigate some variants of the splitting, reaping, and independence numbers defined using asymptotic density. Specifically, we give a proof of Con($\mathfrak{i}<\mathfrak{s}_{1/2}$), Con($\mathfrak{r}_{1/2}<\mathfrak{b}$) and…
Two sets are said to be almost disjoint if their intersection is finite. Almost disjoint subsets of [omega]^omega and omega^omega have been studied for quite some time. In particular, the cardinal invariants a and a_e, defined to be the…
We investigate maximal free sequences in the Boolean algebra $\mathcal{P}(\omega)/\mathrm{fin}$, as defined by D. Monk. We provide some information on the general structure of these objects and we are particularly interested in the minimal…
We prove that the generic maximal independent family obtained by iteratively forcing with the Mathias forcing relative to diagonalization filters is densely maximal. Moreover, by choosing the filters with some care one can ensure the family…
We prove that any definable family of subsets of a definable infinite set $A$ in an o-minimal structure has cardinality at most $|A|$. We derive some consequences in terms of counting definable types and existence of definable topological…
We investigate families of subsets of $\omega$ with almost disjoint refinements in the classical case as well as with respect to given ideals on $\omega$. More precisely, we study the following topics and questions: 1) Examples of…
Our aim is to prove that if T is a complete first order theory, which is not superstable (no knowledge on this notion is required), included in a theory T_1 then for any lambda > |T_1| there are 2^lambda models of T_1 such that for any two…
We prove that every MAD family can be destroyed by a proper forcing that preserves $P$-points. With this result, we prove that it is consistent that $\omega_{1}=\mathfrak{u}<\mathfrak{a,}$ solving a nearly 20 year old problem of Shelah and…
We study two different types of (maximal) almost disjoint families: very mad families and (maximal) cofinitary groups. For the very mad families we prove the basic existence results. We prove that MA implies there exist many pairwise…
We prove the consistency of $\mathrm{add}(\mathcal{N})<\mathrm{cov}(\mathcal{N})<\mathfrak{p}=\mathfrak{g}=\mathfrak{s}<\mathrm{add}(\mathcal{M})=\mathrm{cof}(\mathcal{M})<\mathfrak{a}=\mathrm{non}(\mathcal{N})=\mathfrak{c}$ with ZFC where…
Given a family $F$ of pairwise almost disjoint sets on a countable set $S$, we study maximal almost disjoint (mad) families $F^+$ extending $F$. We define $a^+(F)$ to be the minimal possible cardinality of $F^+\setminus F$ for such $F^+$,…