English

Characterizing the powerset by a complete (Scott) sentence

Logic 2017-01-06 v2

Abstract

This paper is part II of a study on cardinals that are characterizable by a Scott sentence, continuing the work from http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.2426v1. A cardinal κ\kappa is characterized by a Scott sentence ϕM\phi_M, if ϕM\phi_M has a model of size κ\kappa, but no model of κ+\kappa^+. The main question in this paper is the following: Are the characterizable cardinals closed under the powerset operation? We prove that if β\aleph_{\beta} is characterized by a Scott sentence, then 2β+β12^{\aleph_{\beta+\beta_1}} is (homogeneously) characterized by a Scott sentence, for all 0<β1<ω10<\beta_1<\omega_1. So, the answer to the above question is positive, except the case β1=0\beta_1=0 which remains open. As a consequence we derive that if αβ\alpha\le\beta and β\aleph_{\beta} is characterized by a Scott sentence, then α+α1β+β1\aleph_{\alpha+\alpha_1}^{\aleph_{\beta+\beta_1}} is also characterized by a Scott sentence, for all α1<ω1\alpha_1<\omega_1 and 0<β1<ω10<\beta_1<\omega_1. Whence, depending on the model of ZFC, we see that the class of characterizable and homogeneously characterizable cardinals is much richer than previously known. Several open questions are also mentioned at the end.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1205.3522,
  title  = {Characterizing the powerset by a complete (Scott) sentence},
  author = {Ioannis Souldatos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.3522},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

This paper is an updated version of the second half of version 1 of arXiv:1007.2426v1

R2 v1 2026-06-21T21:04:43.792Z