A small transitive family of continuous functions on the Cantor set (Q1862020)

A family of functions, \(\mathcal F\) is called transitive (for a topological space \(X\)) if each \(f\in \mathcal F\) is a continuous self-map on \(X\) and for all \(x,y\in X\), there is an \(f\in \mathcal F\) such that either \(f(x)=y\) or \(f(y)=x\). J. van Mill observed that the minimum cardinality of a transitive family for \(\beta N\), denoted \(\mathfrak{t}\mathfrak{f}(\beta N)\), is at least \(\mathfrak{c}^+\) and showed that \(\mathfrak{t}\mathfrak{f}(C)\geq \omega_1\), where \(C\) is the Cantor set. The authors observe that van Mill's proof can be modified to show that \(\mathfrak{t}\mathfrak{f}(C)=\mathfrak{c}\) follows from MA(countable). The main result in the paper is that the iterated Sacks model witnesses that \(\mathfrak{t}\mathfrak{f}(C)=\omega_1<\mathfrak{c}\) is consistent. The proof is somewhat similar to Miller's result that in this same model every subset of size continuum can be mapped onto the unit interval by a continuous map. The proof of the final result in the paper, namely that \(\mathfrak{t}\mathfrak{f}(C)=\mathfrak{c}\) in the side-by-side Sacks model does need a minor but straightforward repair.