Galeotti, Khomskii and Väänänen recently introduced the notion of the upward Löwenheim-Skolem-Tarski number for a logic, strengthening the classical notion of a Hanf number. A cardinal κ is the upward Löwenheim-Skolem-Tarski number (ULST number ) of a logic L if it is the least cardinal with the property that whenever M is a model of size at least κ satisfying a sentence φ in L , then there are arbitrarily large models satisfying φ and having M as a substructure. The substructure requirement is what differentiates the ULST number from the Hanf number and gives the notion large cardinal strength . While it is a theorem of ZFC that every logic has a Hanf number, Galeotti, Khomskii and Väänänen showed that the existence of the ULST number for second-order logic implies the existence of a partially extendible cardinal. We answer positively their conjecture that the ULST number for second-order logic is the least extendible cardinal. We define the strong ULST number by strengthening the substructure requirement to elementary substructure. We investigate the ULST and strong ULST numbers for several classical strong logics: infinitary logics, the equicardinality logic, logic with the well-foundedness quantifier, second-order logic, and sort logics. We show that the ULST and the strong ULST numbers are characterized in some cases by classical large cardinals and in some cases by natural new large cardinal notions that they give rise to. We show that for some logics the notions of the ULST number, strong ULST number and least strong compactness cardinal coincide, while for others, it is consistent that they can be separated. Finally, we introduce a natural large cardinal notion characterizing strong compactness cardinals for the equicardinality logic.

Abstract The stable core, an inner model of the form $\langle L[S],\in , S\rangle $ for a simply definable predicate S, was introduced by the first author in [8], where he showed that V is a class forcing extension of its stable core. We study the structural properties of the stable core and its interactions with large cardinals. We show that the $\operatorname {GCH} $ can fail at all regular cardinals in the stable core, that the stable core can have a discrete proper class of measurable cardinals, but that measurable cardinals need not be downward absolute to the stable core. Moreover, we show that, if large cardinals exist in V, then the stable core has inner models with a proper class of measurable limits of measurables, with a proper class of measurable limits of measurable limits of measurables, and so forth. We show this by providing a characterization of natural inner models $L[C_1, \dots , C_n]$ for specially nested class clubs $C_1, \dots , C_n$ , like those arising in the stable core, generalizing recent results of Welch [29].

Abstract The class forcing theorem, which asserts that every class forcing notion ${\mathbb {P}}$ admits a forcing relation $\Vdash _{\mathbb {P}}$ , that is, a relation satisfying the forcing relation recursion—it follows that statements true in the corresponding forcing extensions are forced and forced statements are true—is equivalent over Gödel–Bernays set theory $\text {GBC}$ to the principle of elementary transfinite recursion $\text {ETR}_{\text {Ord}}$ for class recursions of length $\text {Ord}$ . It is also equivalent to the existence of truth predicates for the infinitary languages $\mathcal {L}_{\text {Ord},\omega }(\in ,A)$ , allowing any class parameter A; to the existence of truth predicates for the language $\mathcal {L}_{\text {Ord},\text {Ord}}(\in ,A)$ ; to the existence of $\text {Ord}$ -iterated truth predicates for first-order set theory $\mathcal {L}_{\omega ,\omega }(\in ,A)$ ; to the assertion that every separative class partial order ${\mathbb {P}}$ has a set-complete class Boolean completion; to a class-join separation principle; and to the principle of determinacy for clopen class games of rank at most $\text {Ord}+1$ . Unlike set forcing, if every class forcing notion ${\mathbb {P}}$ has a forcing relation merely for atomic formulas, then every such ${\mathbb {P}}$ has a uniform forcing relation applicable simultaneously to all formulas. Our results situate the class forcing theorem in the rich hierarchy of theories between $\text {GBC}$ and Kelley–Morse set theory $\text {KM}$ .

We show that, assuming GCH, if κ is a Ramsey or a strongly Ramsey cardinal and F is a class function on the regular cardinals having a closure point at κ and obeying the constraints of Easton's theorem, namely, F(α)≤F(β) for α≤β and α

Abstract One of the numerous characterizations of a Ramsey cardinal κ involves the existence of certain types of elementary embeddings for transitive sets of size κ satisfying a large fragment of ZFC. We introduce new large cardinal axioms generalizing the Ramsey elementary embeddings characterization and show that they form a natural hierarchy between weakly compact cardinals and measurable cardinals. These new axioms serve to further our knowledge about the elementary embedding properties of smaller large cardinals, in particular those still consistent with V = L.

Abstract This paper continues the study of the Ramsey-like large cardinals introduced in [5] and [14]. Ramsey-like cardinals are defined by generalizing the characterization of Ramsey cardinals via the existence of elementary embeddings. Ultrafilters derived from such embeddings are fully iterable and so it is natural to ask about large cardinal notions asserting the existence of ultrafilters allowing only α-many iterations for some countable ordinal α. Here we study such α-iterable cardinals. We show that the α-iterable cardinals form a strict hierarchy for α ≤ ω1, that they are downward absolute to L for , and that the consistency strength of Schindler's remarkable cardinals is strictly between 1-iterable and 2-iterable cardinals. We show that the strongly Ramsey and super Ramsey cardinals from [5] are downward absolute to the core model K. Finally, we use a forcing argument from a strongly Ramsey cardinal to separate the notions of Ramsey and virtually Ramsey cardinals. These were introduced in [14] as an upper bound on the consistency strength of the Intermediate Chang's Conjecture.

Abstract Some 40 years ago, Dana Scott proved that every countable Scott set is the standard system of a model of PA. Two decades later, Knight and Nadel extended his result to Scott sets of sizeω1. Here, I show that assuming the Proper Forcing Axiom (PFA), every A-proper Scott set is the standard system of a model of PA. I define that a Scott set is proper if the quotient Boolean algebra /Fin is a proper partial order and A-proper if is additionally arithmetically closed. I also investigate the question of the existence of proper Scott sets.