Patterns of Compact Cardinals

Abstract

We show relative to strong hypotheses that patterns of compact cardinals in the universe, where a compact cardinal is one which is either strongly compact or supercompact, can be virtually arbitrary. Specifically, we prove if V is a model of ``ZFC + Omega is the least inaccessible limit of measurable limits of supercompact cardinals + f :Omega-->2 is a function'', then there is a partial ordering P in V so that for Vbar = V^P, Vbar_Omega models ``ZFC + There is a proper class of compact cardinals + If f(alpha) = 0, then the alpha-th compact cardinal isn't supercompact + If f(alpha) = 1, then the alpha-th compact cardinal is supercompact''. We then prove a generalized version of this theorem assuming kappa is a supercompact limit of supercompact cardinals and f:kappa-->2 is a function, and we derive as corollaries of the generalized version of the theorem the consistency of the least measurable limit of supercompact cardinals being the same as the least measurable limit of non-supercompact strongly compact cardinals and the consistency of the least supercompact cardinal being a limit of strongly compact cardinals.