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Noah Schweber
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The "strong" measure number

Beyond measure zero we have yet another measure-y notion of smallness: strong measure zero. A set $S\subseteq\mathbb{R}$ is strong measure zero if, for any $f:\mathbb{N}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}_{>0}$, there is a sequence $U_i$ of open sets with

  • the diameter of $U_i$ is $<f(i)$, and

  • $S\subseteq\bigcup_{i\in\mathbb{N}} U_i$.

(Various intermediate notions of nullness are also considered.) At least for me, it wasn't immediately obvious that there are measure zero sets which aren't strongly measure zero, but in fact the Cantor set is provably not strong measure zero.

Strong measure zero-ness raises a natural cardinal characteristic-style question:

  • What is the smallest size $\mathfrak{s}_-$ of a non-strongly measure zero set? What is the supremum $\mathfrak{s}_+$ of the cardinalities of the strong measure zero sets?

Clearly every countable set is strong measure zero, so $\mathfrak{s}_-$ is uncountable. The converse, Borel's conjecture, is consistent with ZFC (this was proved by Laver) and implies $\mathfrak{s}_-=\omega_1$ and $\mathfrak{s}_+=\omega$ (this reveals that $\mathfrak{s}_+$ is a bit weird; still, it seems a natural thing to consider, even if it's not a "kosher" CCC). Meanwhile, Sierpinski showed that CH implies that $\mathfrak{s}_+=\mathfrak{s}_-=2^{\aleph_0}$.

My question is:

What is known about $\mathfrak{s}_-$ and $\mathfrak{s}_+$? In particular, where does $\mathfrak{s}_-$ sit amongst other cardinal characteristics (say, those in Cichon's diagram)?

Noah Schweber
  • 20.5k
  • 10
  • 110
  • 331