Absoluteness via Resurrection

Abstract

The resurrection axioms are forcing axioms introduced recently by Hamkins and Johnstone, developing on ideas of Chalons and Velicković. We introduce a stronger form of resurrection axioms (the \emph{iterated} resurrection axioms $\textrm{RA}_α(Γ)$ for a class of forcings $Γ$ and a given ordinal $α$), and show that $\textrm{RA}_ω(Γ)$ implies generic absoluteness for the first-order theory of $H_{γ^+}$ with respect to forcings in $Γ$ preserving the axiom, where $γ=γ_Γ$ is a cardinal which depends on $Γ$ ($γ_Γ=ω_1$ if $Γ$ is any among the classes of countably closed, proper, semiproper, stationary set preserving forcings). We also prove that the consistency strength of these axioms is below that of a Mahlo cardinal for most forcing classes, and below that of a stationary limit of supercompact cardinals for the class of stationary set preserving posets. Moreover we outline that simultaneous generic absoluteness for $H_{γ_0^+}$ with respect to $Γ_0$ and for $H_{γ_1^+}$ with respect to $Γ_1$ with $γ_0=γ_{Γ_0}\neqγ_{Γ_1}=γ_1$ is in principle possible, and we present several natural models of the Morse Kelley set theory where this phenomenon occurs (even for all $H_γ$ simultaneously). Finally, we compare the iterated resurrection axioms (and the generic absoluteness results we can draw from them) with a variety of other forcing axioms, and also with the generic absoluteness results by Woodin and the second author.