A property of reflects below when
is unbounded in . The standard elementary-embedding reflection argument starts with any . Since and , the target model can use itself as a witness to
Elementarity then gives a witness with in the domain.
For a concrete example, the property of being a strongly inaccessible cardinal reflects below . A measurable cardinal is strongly inaccessible, and the assumed inclusion makes this assertion about absolute between and : both models have all subsets of every ordinal below . Thus sees that is strongly inaccessible. Given , it therefore satisfies
Elementarity supplies a strongly inaccessible between and in . As was arbitrary, the strongly inaccessible cardinals below are unbounded.
Let be inaccessible and let be an elementary embedding into a transitive set with critical point . It is -strong when
A formula is a beta-stable cardinal property when it is absolute between the universe and every transitive set containing .
To say that the embedding reflects such a property means that whenever holds,
is unbounded in : for every there is such a with . Indeed, stability gives , so sees the witness between and . Elementarity reflects a witness between and . This is reflection by a beta-strong embedding.