Superstrong cardinals are never Laver indestructible. Similarly, almost huge cardinals, huge cardinals, superhuge cardinals, rank-into-rank cardinals, extendible cardinals, 1-extendible cardinals, 0-extendible cardinals, weakly superstrong cardinals, uplifting cardinals, pseudo-uplifting cardinals, superstrongly unfoldable cardinals, Σn-reflecting cardinals, Σn-correct cardinals and Σn-extendible cardinals are never Laver indestructible. In fact, all these large cardinal properties are superdestructible: if κ exhibits any of them, with corresponding target θ, then in any forcing extension arising from nontrivial strategically <κ-closed forcing Q∈Vθ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} (...) \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbb{Q} \in V_\theta}$$\end{document}, the cardinal κ will exhibit none of the large cardinal properties with target θ or larger. (shrink)

The Gap Forcing Theorem, a key contribution of this paper, implies essentially that after any reverse Easton iteration of closed forcing, such as the Laver preparation, every supercompactness measure on a supercompact cardinal extends a measure from the ground model. Thus, such forcing can create no new supercompact cardinals, and, if the GCH holds, neither can it increase the degree of supercompactness of any cardinal; in particular, it can create no new measurable cardinals. In a crescendo of what I call (...) exact preservation theorems, I use this new technology to perform a kind of partial Laver preparation, and thereby finely control the class of posets which preserve a supercompact cardinal. Eventually, I prove the ‘As You Like It’ Theorem, which asserts that the class of κ -directed closed posets which preserve a supercompact cardinal κ can be made by forcing to conform with any pre-selected local definition which respects the equivalence of forcing. Along the way I separate completely the levels of the superdestructibility hierarchy, and, in an epilogue, prove that the notions of fragility and superdestructibility are orthogonal — all four combinations are possible. (shrink)

We investigate the indestructibility properties of strongly compact cardinals in universes where strong compactness suffers from identity crisis. We construct an iterative poset that can be used to establish Kimchi–Magidor theorem from (in The independence between the concepts of compactness and supercompactness, circulated manuscript), i.e., that the first n strongly compact cardinals can be the first n measurable cardinals. As an application, we show that the first n strongly compact cardinals can be the first n measurable cardinals while the strong (...) compactness of each strongly compact cardinal is indestructible under Levy collapses (our theorem is actually more general, see Sect. 3). A further application is that the class of strong cardinals can be nonempty yet coincide with the class of strongly compact cardinals while strong compactness of any strongly compact cardinal κ is indestructible under κ-directed closed posets that force GCH at κ. (shrink)

I analyze the hierarchy of large cardinals between a supercompact cardinal and an almost-huge cardinal. Many of these cardinals are defined by modifying the definition of a high-jump cardinal. A high-jump cardinal is defined as the critical point of an elementary embedding j:V→M\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${j: V \to M}$$\end{document} such that M is closed under sequences of length sup{j|f:κ→κ}\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\sup\{{j\,|\,f: \kappa \to \kappa}\}}$$\end{document}. Some of the other (...) cardinals analyzed include the super-high-jump cardinals, almost-high-jump cardinals, Shelah-for-supercompactness cardinals, Woodin-for-supercompactness cardinals, Vopěnka cardinals, hypercompact cardinals, and enhanced supercompact cardinals. I organize these cardinals in terms of consistency strength and implicational strength. I also analyze the superstrong cardinals, which are weaker than supercompact cardinals but are related to high-jump cardinals. Among the results, I highlight the following. Vopěnka cardinals are the same as Woodin-for-supercompactness cardinals.There are no excessively hypercompact cardinals.Furthermore, I prove some results relating high-jump cardinals to forcing, as well as analyzing Laver functions for super-high-jump cardinals. (shrink)