The weakly compact reflection principle need not imply a high order of weak compactness (Q2288337)

This paper continues the study of the weakly compact reflection principle, which was introduced and worked on independently by the first author in [Notre Dame J. Formal Logic 60, No. 3, 503--521 (2019; Zbl 07120753)] and by the second author in [Isr. J. Math. 208, 1--11 (2015; Zbl 1371.03069)]. The weakly compact reflection principle is a kind of generalization of stationary reflection in the wider context of indescribable sets. If \(\kappa\) is a cardinal, a set \(S\subseteq\kappa\) is \(\Pi^1_1\)-indescribable (or weakly compact) if for any \(A\subseteq V_\kappa\) and any \(\Pi^1_1\) formula \(\varphi\) which holds in the structure \((V_\kappa,\in,A)\) there is some \(\alpha\in S\) so that \(\varphi\) holds already in the initial segment \((V_\alpha,\in,A\cap V_\alpha)\). The cardinal \(\kappa\) is \(\Pi^1_1\)-indescribable if it is indescribable as a subset of itself. The weakly compact reflection principle \(\mathrm{Refl}_1(\kappa)\) (or \(\mathrm{Refl_{wc}}(\kappa)\)) states that \(\kappa\) is weakly compact and that every weakly compact subset of \(\kappa\) has a weakly compact proper initial segment. The first author observed that \(\mathrm{Refl}_1(\kappa)\) implies that \(\kappa\) is \(\omega\)-weakly compact, a kind of higher order of the large cardinal property, based on a Mahlo-like hierarchy introduced by \textit{A. Hellsten} [Arch. Math. Logic 45, No. 6, 705--714 (2006; Zbl 1099.03043)]. He then asked whether one could extract more, or whether it was consistent that the weakly compact reflection principle held at a cardinal which was not \((\omega+1)\)-weakly compact. The present paper answers this question by showing that, if weakly compact reflection holds at \(\kappa\), one may force to preserve this fact while making \(\kappa\) the least \(\omega\)-weakly compact cardinal (and therefore not \((\omega+1)\)-weakly compact). The proof procedes by identifying, for each \(\omega\)-weakly compact cardinal, an \(\omega\)-sequence of weakly compact subsets certifying this large cardinal property. The authors then design a forcing iteration that destroys the weak compactness of some of these subsets (chosen generically) at every \(\omega\)-weakly compact cardinal \(\gamma<\kappa\). In the end, \(\kappa\) remains the least \(\omega\)-weakly compact cardinal. A further argument shows that the weakly compact reflection principle is preserved to the forcing extension, based on the fact that, for this kind of forcing iteration, every non-weakly compact set in the extension is covered by a non-weakly compact set from the ground model.