Uniformization and anti-uniformization properties of ladder systems
Volume 181 / 2004
Abstract
Natural weakenings of uniformizability of a ladder system on $\omega _1$ are considered. It is shown that even assuming CH all the properties may be distinct in a strong sense. In addition, these properties are studied in conjunction with other properties inconsistent with full uniformizability, which we call anti-uniformization properties. The most important conjunction considered is the uniformization property we call countable metacompactness and the anti-uniformization property we call thinness. The existence of a thin, countably metacompact ladder system is used to construct interesting topological spaces: a countably paracompact and nonnormal subspace of $\omega _1^2$, and a countably paracompact, locally compact screenable space which is not paracompact. Whether the existence of a thin, countably metacompact ladder system is consistent is left open. Finally, the relation between the properties introduced and other well known properties of ladder systems, such as $\clubsuit $, is considered.
