Covering Numbers Associated with Trees Branching into a Countably Generated Set of Possibilities

Abstract

One can think of the dominating number as the covering number for the ideal on the $\omega$-branching tree generated by finite branching subtrees. This paper is concerned with generalizations of this when "finite" is replaced by some other concept. A key example is obtained by thinking of the branching as being into the integers --- both positive and negative --- and replacing "finite" by "bounded either above or below". This notion was motivated by considerations related to decomposing functions of low Baire class into continuous functions.