Mob families and mad families (Q1128180)

The standard example of an almost disjoint family is the collection of branches \(b\) of \(T\) a countable splitting tree. For this review we fix \(T = \omega^{<\omega}\). The cardinal invariant \(\mathfrak a\) is the smallest cardinality of a maximal almost disjoint family on a countable set. A set \(A \subset T\) if called \textit{off-branch} if \(A \cap b\) is finite for every \(b\) is a branch of \(T\). One can then talk about almost disjoint families of off-branch sets, and \(\mathfrak o\) is the smallest cardinality of one of those. Answering a question of Leathrum, this paper shows the consistency of \(\mathfrak o < \mathfrak d =\) the dominating number. Answering a question implicit in work of Shelah, this paper shows the consistency of the unbounding number \(\mathfrak b\) \(< \mathfrak a\) with \(\mathfrak c > \omega_2\). Both proofs proceed by adding sets via forcings that preserve unbounded sets in the ground model.