The combinatorics of \(\tau\)-covers (Q857053)

The authors study selection principles that assert the possibility of selecting from each term of a sequence of covers of type~A a few elements so as to form a cover of type~B. The types of covers under consideration are large (every point belongs to infinitely many members), \(\omega\)-cover (every finite set is part of a member), \(\gamma\)-cover (the cover is infinite and every point is in all but finitely many members) and \(\tau\)-cover (large and if \(x\neq y\) then (at least) one of \(\{U:x\in U\not\ni y\}\) and \(\{U:x\not\in U\ni y\}\) is finite). Further variation is added by requiring the covers to be open, clopen, Borel, etc. Many selection principles can be translated to diagonalization properties of families of subsets of \(\omega\times\omega\); this then allows the authors to investigate the minimum cardinalities of subsets of~\(\mathbb{R}\) that do not satisfy the corresponding principles and to relate these to known cardinal characteristics of the continuum.