Can a small forcing create Kurepa trees?

Abstract

In the paper we probe the possibilities of creating a Kurepa tree in a generic extension of a model of CH plus no Kurepa trees by an omega_1-preserving forcing notion of size at most omega_1. In the first section we show that in the Levy model obtained by collapsing all cardinals between omega_1 and a strongly inaccessible cardinal by forcing with a countable support Levy collapsing order many omega_1-preserving forcing notions of size at most omega_1 including all omega-proper forcing notions and some proper but not omega-proper forcing notions of size at most omega_1 do not create Kurepa trees. In the second section we construct a model of CH plus no Kurepa trees, in which there is an omega-distributive Aronszajn tree such that forcing with that Aronszajn tree does create a Kurepa tree in the generic extension. At the end of the paper we ask three questions.