The Halpern–Läuchli theorem, a combinatorial result about trees, admits an elegant proof due to Harrington using ideas from forcing. In an attempt to distill the combinatorial essence of this proof, we isolate various partition principles about products of perfect Polish spaces. These principles yield straightforward proofs of the Halpern–Läuchli theorem, and the same forcing from Harrington’s proof can force their consistency. We also show that these principles are not ZFC theorems by showing that they put lower bounds on the size of the continuum.

An infinite graph is said to be highly connected if the induced subgraph on the complement of any set of vertices of smaller size is connected. We continue the study of weaker versions of Ramsey’s theorem on uncountable cardinals asserting that if we color edges of the complete graph, we can find a large highly connected monochromatic subgraph. In particular, several questions of Bergfalk, Hrušák, and Shelah (2021, Acta Mathematica Hungarica 163, 309–322) are answered by showing that assuming the consistency of suitable large cardinals, the following are relatively consistent with ZFC:

• • $\kappa \to _{hc} (\kappa )^2_\omega $ for every regular cardinal $\kappa \geq \aleph _2$,

• • $\neg \mathsf {CH}+ \aleph _2 \to _{hc} (\aleph _1)^2_\omega $.

Building on a work of Lambie-Hanson (2023, Fundamenta Mathematicae. 260(2):181–197), we also show that

• • $\aleph _2 \to _{hc} [\aleph _2]^2_{\omega ,2}$ is consistent with $\neg \mathsf {CH}$.

To prove these results, we use the existence of ideals with strong combinatorial properties after collapsing suitable large cardinals.

We investigate the effect of adding $\omega _2$ Cohen reals on graphs on $\omega _2$, in particular we show that $\omega _2 \to (\omega _2, \omega : \omega )^2$ holds after forcing with $\mathsf {Add}(\omega , \omega _2)$ in a model of $\mathsf {CH}$. We also prove that this result is in a certain sense optimal as $\mathsf {Add}(\omega , \omega _2)$ forces that $\omega _2 \not \to (\omega _2, \omega : \omega _1)^2$.

We investigate the effects of various forcings on several forms of the Halpern– Läuchli theorem. For inaccessible κ, we show they are preserved by forcings of size less than κ. Combining this with work of Zhang in [17] yields that the polarized partition relations associated with finite products of the κ-rationals are preserved by all forcings of size less than κ over models satisfying the Halpern– Läuchli theorem at κ. We also show that the Halpern–Läuchli theorem is preserved by <κ-closed forcings assuming κ is measurable, following some observed reflection properties.

Several variants of the Halpern–Läuchli Theorem for trees of uncountable height are investigated. For κ weakly compact, we prove that the various statements are all equivalent, and hence, the strong tree version holds for one tree on any weakly compact cardinal. For any finite d ≥ 2, we prove the consistency of the Halpern–Läuchli Theorem on d many normal κ-trees at a measurable cardinal κ, given the consistency of a κ + d-strong cardinal. This follows from a more general consistency result at measurable κ, which includes the possibility of infinitely many trees, assuming partition relations which hold in models of AD.

Working in the theory ”ZF + There is a nontrivial elementary embedding j : V → V“, we show that a final segment of cardinals satisfies certain square bracket finite and infinite exponent partition relations. As a corollary to this, we show that this final segment is composed of Jonsson cardinals. We then show how to force and bring this situation down to small alephs. A prototypical result is the construction of a model for ZF in which every cardinal μ ≥ ℵ2 satisfies the square bracket infinite exponent partition relation . We conclude with a discussion of some consistency questions concerning different versions of the axiom asserting the existence of a nontrivial elementary embedding j: V → V. By virtue of Kunen's celebrated inconsistency result, we use only a restricted amount of the Axiom of Choice.