Ramsey degrees of ultrafilters, pseudointersection numbers, and the tools of topological Ramsey spaces

Abstract: This paper investigates properties of $\sigma$-closed forcings which generate ultrafilters satisfying weak partition relations. The Ramsey degree of an ultrafilter $\mathcal{U}$ for $n$-tuples, denoted $t(\mathcal{U},n)$, is the smallest number $t$ such that given any $l\ge 2$ and coloring $c:[\omega]^n\rightarrow l$, there is a member $X\in\mathcal{U}$ such that the restriction of $c$ to $[X]^n$ has no more than $t$ colors. Many well-known $\sigma$-closed forcings are known to generate ultrafilters with finite Ramsey degrees, but finding the precise degrees can sometimes prove elusive or quite involved, at best. In this paper, we utilize methods of topological Ramsey spaces to calculate Ramsey degrees of several classes of ultrafilters generated by $\sigma$-closed forcings. These include a hierarchy of forcings due to Laflamme which generate weakly Ramsey and weaker rapid p-points, forcings of Baumgartner and Taylor and of Blass and generalizations, and the collection of non-p-points generated by the forcings $\mathcal{P}(\omega^k)/\mathrm{Fin}^{\otimes k}$. We provide a general approach to calculating the Ramsey degrees of these ultrafilters, obtaining new results as well as streamlined proofs of previously known results. In the second half of the paper, we calculate pseudointersection and tower numbers for these $\sigma$-closed forcings and their relationships with the classical pseudointersection number $\mathfrak{p}$.