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For an ultrafilter $U$ on $X$ and a function $g:X\to Y$, define $g_{\ast }U=\{B\subseteq Y:g^{-1}[B]\in U\}$. This is an ultrafilter and inherits countable completeness from a countably complete ultrafilter. It is nonprincipal exactly when no single fibre of $g$ belongs to $U$. Restricting $U$ to a member of $U$ before pushing forward preserves these properties.

Given nonempty first-order structures ${\mathcal{M}}_i$ and a proper filter on a set $F$, a reduced product identifies product functions $f,g$ when $\{i:f(i)=g(i)\}\in F$. Operations are interpreted coordinatewise, and relations hold when their coordinate truth sets belong to $F$. For an ultrafilter this is an ultraproduct. Primitive positive formulas transfer through an arbitrary proper filter, whereas logical disjunction and logical negation can fail to transfer.

For a regular infinite $\theta <\kappa$, with $\kappa$ a regular uncountable cardinal number, $S_{\theta }^{\kappa }=\{\delta <\kappa :\mathrm{cf}(\delta )=\theta \}$ is stationary. Build a strictly increasing continuous $\theta$-sequence in any club set, and take its supremum. Closure places it in that club and the cofinality of an increasing ordinal supremum gives cofinality $\theta$. In particular the two disjoint sets $S_{\omega }^{{\omega }_2}$ and $S_{{\omega }_1}^{{\omega }_2}$ show that the club filter on ${\omega }_2$ is not an ultrafilter.

For a sequence of positive integers, the nested closures of its tail finite-sums sets have nonempty compact intersection in the Stone-Čech compactification of the natural numbers. This intersection is a subsemigroup. For a sum $s$ from one tail, all sums supported beyond a chosen finite representation of $s$ lie in that tail translated by $-s$. The ultrafilter addition formula then establishes closure under addition. The Ellis–Numakura lemma supplies an idempotent ultrafilter containing every tail finite-sums set and hence any set containing the full finite-sums set.

A point $b$ lies in $\overline{f[A]}$ exactly when some ultrafilter containing $A$ has pushforward converging to $b$. For the forward implication, the sets $A\cap f^{-1}[V]$ for neighborhoods $V$ of $b$ form a proper filter topological basis; extend to an ultrafilter. For the reverse implication each such intersection belongs to a proper filter and is nonempty.

A topological space is both a compact space and a Hausdorff space exactly when every ultrafilter on its underlying set converges to exactly one point. Existence of all ultrafilter limits characterizes compactness. If a space is not Hausdorff, two distinct points have neighbourhood systems whose combined finite intersections are nonempty; the ultrafilter lemma extends these to an ultrafilter converging to both points. Conversely, disjoint neighbourhoods prevent such a common limit.

A topological space is compact if and only if every ultrafilter on it converges to at least one point, assuming the ultrafilter lemma. No Hausdorff assumption is needed. In a compact space, the closures of the filter members have the finite intersection property, so choose a point in their intersection. Every open neighbourhood of that point belongs to the ultrafilter, since otherwise its closed complement would be a filter member. Conversely, extend the complements of a cover with no finite subcover to an ultrafilter; a limit point lies in a covering open set, contradicting the simultaneous membership of that set and its complement.

Every proper filter on a set is contained in an ultrafilter. Order its proper filter extensions by inclusion, use Zorn lemma to obtain a maximal extension, and observe that maximality forces it to contain exactly one of every set and its complement.

A continuous dense map into a compact Hausdorff space assigns to each ultrafilter on its domain the unique limit of its pushforward. This limit map is surjective by the ultrafilter characterization of image closure. It is injective exactly when disjoint domain subsets have disjoint image closures.

Let $S$ be a nonempty set and $\mathcal{P}\subseteq \mathcal{P}(S)$ be upward closed. An ultrafilter all of whose members lie in $\mathcal{P}$ exists exactly when every finite set partition of $S$ has a cell in $\mathcal{P}$. For sufficiency, the complements of sets outside $\mathcal{P}$ have the finite intersection property: a finite cover by such sets could be disjointified into a partition with no cell in $\mathcal{P}$. The ultrafilter lemma extends the generated proper filter. Necessity follows because an ultrafilter selects exactly one cell of every finite partition. This criterion requires partition richness of the whole ground set; it does not assert that the complement family is closed under unions.

An ultrafilter on the positive integers with every member containing finite arithmetic progressions of arbitrarily large length. The Van der Waerden theorem and ultrafilter selection from a partition-rich family give existence. Such an ultrafilter must contain the complement of every set with bounded arithmetic-progression length, and it is a nonprincipal ultrafilter. No corresponding ultrafilter can have an infinite arithmetic progression in every member, by the dyadic block obstruction to infinite arithmetic progressions.

An ultrafilter with finite-sums members is an ultrafilter on the positive integers all of whose members are IP sets. Such an ultrafilter exists by extending the IP-star filter using the ultrafilter lemma. If a member were not IP, its complement would be an IP-star set and hence another member, contradicting properness. Conversely, every such ultrafilter contains the entire IP-star filter, since it cannot contain the non-IP complement of an IP-star set. This characterization does not assert that the ultrafilter is idempotent.

An ultrapower is an ultraproduct whose factors are all one structure $M$. Its elements are equivalence classes $[f]$ of functions $f:I\to M$, where $f\sim g$ exactly when $\{i\in I:f(i)=g(i)\}$ belongs to the chosen ultrafilter $\mathcal{U}$.

Expand an infinite first-order structure by Skolem functions, choose distinct elements $b_n$, and fix a nonprincipal ultrafilter $\mathcal{U}$ on $\mathbb{N}$. For each finite subset $F$ of the required index order, form the ultrapower over ${\mathbb{N}}^F$ using the ordered Fubini product of ultrafilters. Pullback along coordinate projections gives coherent elementary maps by the Łoś theorem. In their directed limit of elementary embeddings, the classes of the coordinate functions $\mathbf{n}\mapsto b_{n_i}$ are distinct and form an order-indiscernible sequence; every first-order formula on increasing coordinates has the same nested ultrafilter test. Their Skolem hull gives an Ehrenfeucht-Mostowski model. An index-order automorphism sends a term in the generators to the same term in the transported generators; indiscernibility makes this well defined. Uniqueness is in the specified Skolem expansion, not necessarily in its reduct. If generators must respect a definable infinite order, first produce an increasing sequence by an ultrapower of finite increasing chains.

An ultrafilter on the positive integers selects exactly one residue class modulo a fixed positive integer $q$. Under addition on the Stone-Čech compactification of the natural numbers, selected residues add. An idempotent ultrafilter must therefore select a residue $r$ with $2r=r$ in the finite cyclic group, hence $r=0$. In particular, the multiples of every fixed positive integer belong to every additive idempotent ultrafilter.