The almost disjointness invariant for products of ideals

Abstract

The almost disjointness numbers associated to the quotients determined by the transfinite products of the ideal of finite sets are investigated. A $\mathrm{ZFC}$ lower bound involving the minimum of the classical almost disjointness and splitting numbers is proved for these characteristics. En route, it is shown that the splitting numbers associated to these quotients are all equal to the classical splitting number. Finally, it is proved to be consistent that the almost disjointness numbers associated to these quotients are all equal to the second uncountable cardinal while the bounding number is the first uncountable cardinal. Several open problems are considered.