The simulation technique and its applications to infinitary combinatorics under the axiom of Blackwell determinacy. (Q1880135)

The author considers Blackwell games, which are infinite two-person games with ``slightly imperfect'' information; these belong to the broader class of stochastic games. He uses the concepts of mixed strategy and strong optimality to define Blackwell determinacy. In fact, the author introduces three different axioms of Blackwell determinacy: Bl-AD, pBl-AD, blBl-AD; and he ponders their relationship to each other and to the well-known set-theoretic Axiom of Determinacy (AD). Some of the results in this paper were announced in the author's survey article [``Consequences of the axiom of Blackwell determinacy'', Ir. Math. Soc. Bull. 49, 43--69 (2002; Zbl 1072.03033)] reviewed below. The following is known: AD \(\Rightarrow\) Bl-AD \(\Leftrightarrow\) pBL-AD \(\Rightarrow\) blBL-AD. It is also known that AD and pBl-AD are equiconsistent. The main open conjecture, due to D. A. Martin, is that Bl-AD \(\Rightarrow\) AD. The statement AD has certain profound consequences for infinitary combinatorics. The author establishes that Bl-AD has some of these same consequences. For example, he proves that, under Bl-AD, \(\aleph_1\) has the strong partition property and that odd projective ordinals are measurable cardinals. The author develops what he calls ``the simulation technique'', which allows him to transfer the classical proofs of combinatorial properties from AD to the Blackwell context. The paper ends with a list of open problems.