The tree property at successors of singular cardinals (Q1354356)

A \(\kappa\)-tree is a tree in which each level is of cardinality less than \(\kappa\), and the supremum of the lengths of well-ordered subsets of the tree is \(\kappa\). A tree is an Aronszajn tree if there is some \(\kappa\) for which it is a \(\kappa\)-tree, and no well-ordered subset of it has length \(\kappa\); a \(\kappa\) for which this happens is said to carry an Aronszajn tree. Every singular cardinal carries an Aronszajn tree. Thus, the question of which cardinals are carriers of Aronszajn trees is of interest for regular cardinals. An old result of König's states that \(\aleph_0\) does not carry an Aronszajn tree. Aronszajn showed that \(\aleph_1\) carries an Aronszajn tree. Besides these ZFC results we also know: Weakly compact cardinals are characterized by the fact that they are strongly inaccessible, but do not carry Aronszajn trees. Silver proved that if it is consistent that there is a weakly compact cardinal, then it is consistent that \(\aleph_2\) is not a carrier of Aronszajn trees. Jensen showed that in Gödel's Constructible Universe a cardinal is a carrier of an Aronszajn tree if, and only if, it is not weakly compact. Though these results indicate that it is consistent that successors of singular cardinal numbers be carriers of Aronszajn trees, none of them indicate or preclude the provability in ZFC of such a property for successors of singular cardinal numbers. A result of Specker, generalizing Aronszajn's original construction, implies that if the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis holds, then the successor of any regular cardinal carries an Aronszajn tree. This also gives no indication whether \(\text{ZFC}+\text{GCH}\) could be used to produce Aronszajn trees on successors of singular cardinals. In this paper, the authors give the first ZFC result in this direction: If a singular cardinal number is the limit of strongly compact cardinals, then its successor is not the carrier of an Aronszajn tree. Though one cannot prove the existence of strongly compact cardinals in ZFC, this result indicates that there are reasons why successors of singular cardinals have been difficult to tame with regards to the question of Aronszajn trees. The authors then go further and treat the concrete case of \(\aleph_{\omega+1}\). They show that if it is consistent that sufficiently large cardinal numbers exist, then it is consistent that ZFC holds, and \(\aleph_{\omega+1}\) does not carry an Aronszajn tree.