The exact strength of generic absoluteness for the universally Baire sets

TL;DR

This paper establishes the precise consistency strength of the generic absoluteness principle called Sealing, showing it is equivalent to a specific large cardinal hypothesis and connecting it to determinacy axioms and the structure of universally Baire sets.

Contribution

It precisely characterizes the consistency strength of Sealing and related principles in terms of large cardinal axioms, linking them to determinacy and universally Baire sets.

Findings

Sealing is equiconsistent with LSA-over-uB over some large cardinal theory.

Sealing is weaker than the existence of a limit of Woodin cardinals.

Tower Sealing is also equiconsistent with Sealing.

Abstract

A set of reals is \textit{universally Baire} if all of its continuous preimages in topological spaces have the Baire property. $\sf{Sealing}$ is a type of generic absoluteness condition introduced by Woodin that asserts in strong terms that the theory of the universally Baire sets cannot be changed by forcing. The $\sf{Largest\ Suslin\ Axiom}$ ($\sf{LSA}$) is a determinacy axiom isolated by Woodin. It asserts that the largest Suslin cardinal is inaccessible for ordinal definable bijections. Let $\sf{LSA-over-uB}$ be the statement that in all (set) generic extensions there is a model of $\sf{LSA}$ whose Suslin, co-Suslin sets are the universally Baire sets. We show that over some mild large cardinal theory, $\sf{Sealing}$ is equiconsistent with $\sf{LSA-over-uB}$. In fact, we isolate an exact large cardinal theory that is equiconsistent with both (see \rdef{dfn:hod_pm}). As a consequence, we obtain that $\sf{Sealing}$ is weaker than the theory $``\sf{ZFC} + $there is a Woodin cardinal which is a limit of Woodin cardinals". A variation of $\sf{Sealing}$, called $\sf{Tower \ Sealing}$, is also shown to be equiconsistent with $\sf{Sealing}$ over the same large cardinal theory. The result is proven via Woodin's $\sf{Core\ Model\ Induction}$ technique, and is essentially the ultimate equiconsistency that can be proven via the current interpretation of $\sf{CMI}$ as explained in the paper.