Sunday, 28 October 2012

lo.logic - Model of ZF + $neg$C in which Solovay's Theorem on stationary sets fails?

It is a theorem of Solovay that any stationary subset of a regular cardinal, $kappa$ can be decomposed into a disjoint union of $kappa$ many disjoint stationary sets. As far as I know, the proof requires the axiom of choice. But is there some way to get a model, for instance a canonical inner model, in which ZF + $neg $C holds and Solovay's Theorem fails?



I am interested in this problem because Solovay's theorem can be used to prove the Kunen inconsistency, that is, that there is no elementary embedding j:V -->V, where j is allowed to be any class, under GBC. The Kunen inconsistency may be viewed as an upper bound on the hierarchy of large cardinals. Without choice, no one has yet proven the Kunen inconsistency (although it can be proven without choice if we restrict ourselves to definable j). So if there is hope of proving Solovay's Theorem without choice, we could use this to prove the Kunen inconsistency without choice.

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