Van Douwen's diagram for dense sets of rationals (Q2433746)

The author studies the set of dense subsets of rationals, \(D(\mathbb Q\)), modulo the ideal, nwd, of nowhere dense sets of rationals. In particular, he considers some cardinal invariants associated with the structure \(D(\mathbb Q\))/nwd that mimic certain cardinal invariants associated with the more heavily examined structure \(\mathcal P(\omega)\)/fin. These latter invariants are \(\mathfrak s\) and \(\mathfrak h\), the splitting number and the distributivity number of \(\mathcal P(\omega)\)/fin, respectively. The cardinal invariants \(\mathfrak s_ {\mathbb Q}\) and \(\mathfrak h_{\mathbb Q}\) are the appropriately defined splitting number and distributivity number for the structure \(D(\mathbb Q\))/nwd. The author begins by giving an alternative characterization of \(\mathsf{add}(\mathcal M\)), the least \(\kappa\) for which the meager ideal is not \(\kappa\)-additive. He then proves that \(\mathfrak s_{\mathbb Q}\leq\text{min}\{\mathfrak s, \mathsf{add}(\mathcal M)\}\). The author also shows the consistency of \(\mathfrak h_{\mathbb Q}<\mathfrak s_{\mathbb Q}\) and the consistency of \(\mathfrak h<\mathfrak h_{\mathbb Q}\). He uses Laver forcing with maximal \(\mathbb Q\)-filters to establish these consistency results.