Abstract We study higher analogues of the classical independence number on $\omega $ . For $\kappa $ regular uncountable, we denote by $i(\kappa )$ the minimal size of a maximal $\kappa $ -independent family. We establish ZFC relations between $i(\kappa )$ and the standard higher analogues of some of the classical cardinal characteristics, e.g., $\mathfrak {r}(\kappa )\leq \mathfrak {i}(\kappa )$ and $\mathfrak {d}(\kappa )\leq \mathfrak {i}(\kappa )$ . For $\kappa $ measurable, assuming that $2^{\kappa }=\kappa ^{+}$ we construct a maximal $\kappa $ -independent family which remains maximal after the $\kappa $ -support product of $\lambda $ many copies of $\kappa $ -Sacks forcing. Thus, we show the consistency of $\kappa ^{+}=\mathfrak {d}(\kappa )=\mathfrak {i}(\kappa )<2^{\kappa }$ . We conclude the paper with interesting open questions and discuss difficulties regarding other natural approaches to higher independence.

Abstract We introduce a forcing technique to construct three-dimensional arrays of generic extensions through FS (finite support) iterations of ccc posets, which we refer to as 3D-coherent systems. We use them to produce models of new constellations in Cichoń’s diagram, in particular, a model where the diagram can be separated into 7 different values. Furthermore, we show that this constellation of 7 values is consistent with the existence of a ${\rm{\Delta }}_3^1$ well-order of the reals.