Club filter 2026-10-06
On a regular uncountable cardinal number , the club filter consists of all subsets containing a club set. It is a kappa-complete filter by club filter completeness. Its members are stationary sets, although a stationary set need not be a filter member, and a filter member need not itself be closed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 19 2 iv Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let . This set is stationary: in any club set, choose a strictly increasing countable sequence and take its supremum, which lies in the club set and has cofinality . For each choose an increasing cofinal sequence .
Fix . For every above , some exceeds . Partition this stationary tail by the least such . A countable union of nonstationary sets is nonstationary, because fewer than club sets have club filter completeness, so some cell is stationary. On it the regressive function has, by Fodor lemma, a stationary fiber at a value .
Let . The preceding argument says is unbounded in . Since , at least one is unbounded and therefore has size . Its fibers are pairwise disjoint stationary sets. Enumerate of them as , , and define for , whileAdding a remainder preserves stationarity and introduces no overlap. ConsequentlyThis proves the stationary partition by cofinal-sequence fibers directly for every regular uncountable .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 24 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Take and choose a club sequence on , each of order type at most . For a successor use its predecessor as a singleton; at a limit use a cofinal sequence of minimal length. Form the minimal-walk treeordered by proper extension. Its height is .
For , the initial segment has order type strictly below , and is countable. The strict inequality follows because a point of at or above occurs later in its enumeration. Hence every entry of every trace is countable. Under the Continuum hypothesis, for ,There are at most finite sequences of such sets. The trace coherence lemma for minimal walks says that, for , the value determines . The case adds at most one node. Thus for every level.
Suppose that had a cofinal branch, and take the union of its functions, , with domain . Every is injective by the proper-initial-segment argument, so is injective too. On the stationary setthis set is stationary because the supremum of a strictly increasing -sequence from any club set has cofinality and lies in that club. The union of the finitely many countable entries of is bounded below . Assign a strict upper bound below to obtain a regressive function. By Fodor lemma, there is a stationary and a single such that every entry of lies inside for . There are at most such finite sequences by the same cardinal arithmetic, but , contradicting injectivity.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 24 4 c i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
If is a Mahlo cardinal, its inaccessible ordinals form a stationary set. For any , intersect that set with the club set of elementary levels from club reflection below an inaccessible cardinal. This supplies an inaccessible with the required elementary substructure.
Conversely, take an arbitrary club set and use it as the predicate . In , the sentence asserting that predicate-marked ordinals occur above every ordinal is true. Any inaccessible elementary level therefore satisfies that is unbounded in its ordinals, which are precisely the ordinals below . Since is closed and is a limit ordinal, . The assumed reflection property consequently gives an inaccessible ordinal in every club set. Hence the inaccessible ordinals are stationary and
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 121 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A uniform example is . It contains the final segment , a club set. Therefore belongs to the club filter. Every two club sets in a regular uncountable cardinal intersect: alternately choose larger points from each and take the countable supremum, which remains below and lies in both by closure. Hence every member of the club filter is a stationary set, so is stationary.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 121 3 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Weakly inaccessible cardinals are unbounded below the given cardinal. In fact, they form a stationary set there. Let be the weakly Mahlo cardinal, so it is a regular uncountable limit cardinal and the set is stationary.
The set of uncountable limit cardinals below is a club set. For unboundedness, above any starting point choose a strictly increasing countable sequence of cardinal numbers below ; its supremum remains below by regularity and is an uncountable limit cardinal. For closure, a limit of such limit cardinals is again a limit cardinal.
Every is an uncountable regular cardinal and a limit cardinal, hence a weakly inaccessible cardinal. The intersection of a stationary set with a club set is stationary, because its intersection with any further club is nonempty. ThereforeThis proves the stronger form of the requested conclusion.
For any regular uncountable cardinal number , the set contains the final-segment club set , so belongs to the club filter and is a stationary set. It is not closed, since its finite ordinals have supremum , which is missing.
For an uncountable regular cardinal , choose cofinal sequences for the stationary set of ordinals of cofinality . Above any bound, some fixed coordinate exceeds the bound on a stationary subset; Fodor lemma makes that coordinate constant on a stationary subset. Thus the stationary constant fibers, over all coordinates, have unboundedly many values. Regularity makes one coordinate have such values. Its fibers are disjoint stationary sets; adding all leftover ordinals to one piece partitions .
Ulam matrix on omega-one 2026-10-06
A family whose row at partitions and whose fixed-column cells are pairwise disjoint. Choose injections and put . This gives a matrix used to split stationary sets into many stationary pieces.
Weakly Mahlo cardinal 2026-10-06
A weakly inaccessible cardinal is weakly Mahlo if is a stationary set. Intersecting this set with the club set of uncountable limit cardinals shows that the weakly inaccessible cardinals below are stationary, hence unbounded.