19 May 2021 4:30 pm UK

Samuel Adam-Day

University of Oxford

The continuous gradability of the cut-point orders of $\newcommand\R{\mathbb{R}}\R$-trees

Abstract. An $\R$-tree is a metric space tree in which every point can be branching. Favre and Jonsson posed the following problem in 2004: can the class of orders underlying $\R$-trees be characterised by the fact that every branch is order-isomorphic to a real interval? In the first part of the talk, I answer this question in the negative: there is a branchwise-real tree order which is not continuously gradable. In the second part, I show that a branchwise-real tree order is continuously gradable if and only if every embedded well-stratified (i.e. set-theoretic) tree is $\R$-gradable. This tighter link with set theory is put to work in the third part answering a number of refinements of the main question, yielding several independence results.

26 May 2021 4:30 pm BST

Sandra Müller

TU Wien

The strength of determinacy when all sets are universally Baire

Abstract. The large cardinal strength of the Axiom of Determinacy when enhanced with the hypothesis that all sets of reals are universally Baire is known to be much stronger than the Axiom of Determinacy itself. In fact, Sargsyan conjectured it to be as strong as the existence of a cardinal that is both a limit of Woodin cardinals and a limit of strong cardinals. Larson, Sargsyan and Wilson showed that this would be optimal via a generalization of Woodin’s derived model construction. We will discuss a new translation procedure for hybrid mice extending work of Steel, Zhu and Sargsyan and use this to prove Sargsyan’s conjecture.

1 June 2021 4:30 pm BST

Christopher Turner

Bristol

Forcing Axioms and Name Principles

Abstract. Forcing axioms are a well-known way of expressing the concept ”there are filters in V which are close to being generic”. Name principles are another expression of this concept. A name principle says: ”Let $\sigma$ be any sufficiently nice name which is forced to have some property. Then there is a filter $g\in V$ such that $\sigma^g$ has that property.” Name principles have often been used on an ad-hoc basis in proofs, but have not been studied much as axioms in their own right. In this talk, I will present some of the connections between different name principles, and between name principles and forcing axioms. This is based on joint work with Philipp Schlicht.

16 June 2021 4:30 pm BST

Joan Bagaria

Barcelona

Some recent results on Structural Reflection

Abstract. The general Structural Reflection (SR) principle asserts that for every definable, in the first-order language of set theory, possibly with parameters, class $\mathcal{C}$ of relational structures of the same type there exists an ordinal $\alpha$ that reflects $\mathcal{C}$, i.e.,  for every $A$ in $\mathcal{C}$ there exists $B$ in $\mathcal{C}\cap V_\alpha$ and an elementary embedding from $B$ into $A$. In this form, SR is equivalent to Vopenka’s Principle (VP). In my talk I will present some different natural variants of SR which are equivalent to the existence some well-known large cardinals weaker than VP. I will also consider some forms of SR, reminiscent of Chang’s Conjecture, which imply the existence of large cardinal principles stronger than VP, at the level of rank-into-rank embeddings and beyond. The latter is a joint work with Philipp Lücke. 

24 March 2021 4pm UK

Andrew Marks

UCLA

The decomposability conjecture

Abstract. We characterize which Borel functions are decomposable into a countable union of functions which are piecewise continuous on $\Pi^0_n$ domains, assuming projective determinacy. One ingredient of our proof is a new characterization of what Borel sets are $\Sigma^0_n$ complete. Another important ingredient is a theorem of Harrington that there is no projective sequence of length $\omega_1$ of distinct Borel sets of  bounded rank, assuming projective determinacy. This is joint work with Adam Day.

10 March 2021 4pm UK

Peter Koellner

Harvard University

Minimal Models and $\beta$ Categoricity

Abstract. Let us say that a theory $T$ in the language of set theory is $\beta$-consistent at $\alpha$ if there is a transitive model of $T$ of height $\alpha$, and let us say that it is $\beta$-categorical at $\alpha$ iff there is at most one transitive model of $T$ of height $\alpha$. Let us also assume, for ease of formulation, that there are arbitrarily large $\alpha$ such that $\newcommand\ZFC{\text{ZFC}}\ZFC$ is $\beta$-consistent at $\alpha$.

The sentence $\newcommand\VEL{V=L}\VEL$ has the feature that $\ZFC+\VEL$ is $\beta$-categorical at $\alpha$, for every $\alpha$. If we assume in addition that $\ZFC+\VEL$ is $\beta$-consistent at $\alpha$, then the uniquely determined model is $L_\alpha$, and the minimal such model, $L_{\alpha_0}$, is model of determined by the $\beta$-categorical theory $\ZFC+\VEL+M$, where $M$ is the statement “There does not exist a transitive model of $\ZFC$.”

It is natural to ask whether $\VEL$ is the only sentence that can be $\beta$-categorical at $\alpha$; that is, whether, there can be a sentence $\phi$ such that $\ZFC+\phi$ is $\beta$-categorical at $\alpha$, $\beta$-consistent at $\alpha$, and where the unique model is not $L_\alpha$.  In the early 1970s Harvey Friedman proved a partial result in this direction. For a given ordinal $\alpha$, let $n(\alpha)$ be the next admissible ordinal above $\alpha$, and, for the purposes of this discussion, let us say that an ordinal $\alpha$ is minimal iff a bounded subset of $\alpha$ appears in $L_{n(\alpha)}\setminus L_\alpha$. [Note that $\alpha_0$ is minimal (indeed a new subset of $\omega$ appears as soon as possible, namely, in a $\Sigma_1$-definable manner over $L_{\alpha_0+1}$) and an ordinal $\alpha$ is non-minimal iff $L_{n(\alpha)}$ satisfies that $\alpha$ is a cardinal.] Friedman showed that for all $\alpha$ which are non-minimal, $\VEL$ is the only sentence that is $\beta$-categorical at $\alpha$. The question of whether this is also true for $\alpha$ which are minimal has remained open.

In this talk I will describe some joint work with Hugh Woodin that bears on this question. In general, when approaching a “lightface” question (such as the one under consideration) it is easier to first address the “boldface” analogue of the question by shifting from the context of $L$ to the context of $L[x]$, where $x$ is a real. In this new setting everything is relativized to the real $x$: For an ordinal $\alpha$, we let $n_x(\alpha)$ be the first $x$-admissible ordinal above $\alpha$, and we say that $\alpha$ is $x$-minimal iff a bounded subset of $\alpha$ appears in $L_{n_x(\alpha)}[x]\setminus L_{\alpha}[x]$.

Theorem. Assume $M_1^\#$ exists and is fully iterable. There
  is a sentence $\phi$ in the language of set theory with two
  additional constants, c and d, such that for a Turing cone
  of $x$, interpreting c by $x$, for all $\alpha$

1. if $L_\alpha[x]\models\ZFC$ then there is an interpretation of d by something in $L_\alpha[x]$ such that there is a $\beta$-model of $\ZFC+\phi$ of height $\alpha$ and not equal to $L_\alpha[x]$, and
2. if, in addition, $\alpha$ is $x$-minimal, then there is a unique $\beta$-model of $\ZFC+\phi$ of height $\alpha$ and not equal to $L_\alpha[x]$.

The sentence $\phi$ asserts the existence of an object which is external to $L_\alpha[x]$ and which, in the case where $\alpha$ is minimal, is canonical. The object is a branch $b$ through a certain tree in $L_\alpha[x]$, and the construction uses techniques from the HOD analysis of models of determinacy.

In this talk I will sketch the proof, describe some additional features of the singleton, and say a few words about why the lightface version looks difficult.

4 November 4 pm UK

Mirna Džamonja

Institut for History and Philosophy of Sciences and Techniques, CNRS & Université Panthéon Sorbonne, Paris and Institute of Mathematics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague

On wide Aronszajn trees

Aronszajn trees are a staple of set theory, but there are applications where the requirement of all levels being countable is of no importance. This is the case in set-theoretic model theory, where trees of height and size ω1 but with no uncountable branches play an important role by being clocks of Ehrenfeucht–Fraïssé games that measure similarity of model of size ℵ1. We call such trees wide Aronszajn. In this context one can also compare trees T and T’ by saying that T weakly embeds into T’ if there is a function f that map T into T’ while preserving the strict order <_T. This order translates into the comparison of winning strategies for the isomorphism player, where any winning strategy for T’ translates into a winning strategy for T’. Hence it is natural to ask if there is a largest such tree, or as we would say, a universal tree for the class of wood Aronszajn trees with weak embeddings. It was known that there is no such a tree under CH, but in 1994 Mekler and Väänanen conjectured that there would be under MA(ω1).

    In our upcoming JSL  paper with Saharon Shelah we prove that this is not the case: under MA(ω1) there is no universal wide Aronszajn tree.

The talk will discuss that paper. The paper is available on the arxiv and on line at JSL in the preproof version doi: 10.1017/jsl.2020.42.