Let witness the stationary diamond principle: for every , the set of with is stationary. We construct a normal splitting Suslin tree; this will be a nonspecial Aronszajn tree.
Construct its levels by recursion. Start with one root, and give every node two immediate successors. At a countable limit , the constructed portion is countable. Through each of its nodes choose a cofinal branch of that portion, and put one new node above each chosen branch at level . This keeps the level countable and gives every earlier node an extension. Branches are identified by their predecessor chains, so nodes at a limit level are uniquely determined by their predecessors.
At a limit , decode as a candidate tree antichain of . If it is maximal, choose the branches just described to meet . This is possible: for any node, maximality supplies a comparable member of , and normality of the already constructed portion extends the larger of those two nodes to a cofinal branch up to . Then every node at level , and every later node, lies above a member of . This is antichain sealing by diamond.
Here is a precise way to handle the coding. Give the countable level node codes in . There is a club set of countable limit with , and on this club the nodes below have exactly the relevant codes below . Empty unused codes are ignored. Thus any subset of the entire tree has an ordinal code set to which the stationary diamond principle applies.
Let now be any maximal tree antichain of the completed tree. There is a club set of such that is maximal in . Indeed, choose a comparable member of for each node; closure under the heights of these witnesses gives that club. Intersect it with the coding club. Stationary correct guessing supplies an on this intersection at which is sealed. A member of at or above level would extend a member of below , contradicting the tree antichain property. So is contained in the countable portion below . Every tree antichain extends to a maximal one, hence every tree antichain is countable.
There is no cofinal branch of length . Otherwise, choosing at each successor level the other successor of its branch node would give an uncountable tree antichain. Thus the resulting tree is a Suslin tree. A special Aronszajn tree is a union of countably many tree antichains; here those would all be countable and could not cover the nodes. Therefore
Special Aronszajn tree 2026-10-06
An Aronszajn tree that is a union of countably many tree antichains. Equivalently, it admits a map into a countable set that is injective on each chain.
Suslin tree 2026-10-06
An Aronszajn tree with no uncountable tree antichain. A normal splitting Suslin tree yields a Suslin line by a lexicographic ordering followed by Dedekind completion.
A well-pruned set-theoretic tree that is an Aronszajn tree and a Suslin tree gives a forcing with the countable chain condition for forcing: stronger nodes extend weaker ones. The dense subsets of a forcing order of nodes at or above each level cannot all be met by a filter in an ordered set, since that would produce a cofinal branch. Thus fails. When the continuum exceeds , full Martin axiom includes this instance.