Nonmeasurable images (Q2687322)

The paper under review is about non-measurable sets obtained as direct images, in particular Bernstein sets, which are nice examples of non-measurable subsets of Polish spaces. Recall that a subset of an uncountable Polish space \(X\) is called perfect when it is closed non empty and does not contain isolated points for the induced topology. Any Lebesgue (or Baire) measurable set contains a perfect set or its complement does while by definition \(B\subseteq X\) is Bernstein if both \(B\) and its complement \(X\setminus B\) intersect every perfect set, thus forbidding containment of a perfect set for both \(B\) and its complement \(X\setminus B\). Bernstein sets are usually constructed by transfinite induction, using the fact that there are continuum many perfect sets, see 8.24 in [\textit{A. S. Kechris}, Classical descriptive set theory. Berlin: Springer-Verlag (1995 Zbl 0819.04002)]. The first result of the present paper is a variation on this proof, under the set-theoretic hypothesis that the continuum \(\mathfrak c\) is a regular cardinal (it cannot be written as the union of less than continuum many sets of cardinality less than continuum). It provides a natural condition for producing a set all whose direct images under continuum many fixed functions (with small preimages) are Bernstein. The next results provide conditions when the preimages of points are not small (they are allowed to have cardinality continuum), and the conclusion is stronger than being Bernstein (called being completely non measurable with respect to a certain \(\sigma\)-ideal). The authors use this to construct a subset of the circle all whose orthogonal projections on lines are Bernstein subsets of the projection of the circle. They also give an elementary construction of a subset of the disk which projects on non-measurable subsets of continuum many lines, and on measurable subsets of continuum many lines. New results related to the fact that there are continuous functions \([0,1]\to[0,1]\) all whose direct images of Bernstein sets are equal to \([0,1]\) are also obtained. Finally some versions of a theorem of Żeberski is given (see Theorem 6 in [\textit{S. Żeberski}, in: Proceedings of the 9th Prague topological symposium, Prague, Czech Republic, August 19--25, 2001. Toronto: Topology Atlas. 353--357 (2002; Zbl 0994.03039)]) where the second factor is replaced by the Polish homeomorphism group of a Polish compact space. Various relative consistency results are also given throughout the text.