Some principles related to Chang's conjecture (Q750436)

The authors prove that the consistency strength of the negation of the transversal hypothesis TH (TH says that there exist \(\omega_ 2\) many almost disjoint functions from \(\omega_ 1\) to \(\omega\)) is equal to that of the existence of a \((<\omega_ 1,<\omega_ 1)\)-Erdős cardinal (this cardinal is defined in terms of an infinite game using sets of indiscernibles for \(L_{\kappa}(A))\). One direction of the proof uses the Lévy-Solovay collapse making the Erdős cardinal equal to \(\omega_ 2\). The converse direction uses the core model. Some variants of Chang's conjecture are investigated, including their consistency strength. The key result says that a Chang's conjecture type assertion is equivalent to the negation of TH.