Corona Rigidity (2201.11618v3)

Abstract: We give a unified overview of the study of the effects of additional set theoretic axioms on quotient structures. Our focus is on rigidity, measured in terms of existence (or rather non-existence) of suitably \emph{non-trivial} automorphisms of the quotients in question. A textbook example for the study of this topic is the Boolean algebra $\mathcal P(\mathbb N)/Fin$, whose behavior is the template around which this survey revolves: Forcing axioms imply that all of its automorphisms are \emph{trivial}, in the sense that they are induced by almost permutations of $\mathbb N$, while under the Continuum Hypothesis this rigidity fails and $\mathcal P(\mathbb N)/Fin$ admits uncountably many non-trivial automorphisms. We consider far-reaching generalizations of this phenomenon and present a wide variety of situations where analogous patterns persist, focusing mainly (but not exclusively) on the categories of Boolean algebras, \v Cech--Stone remainders, and $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras. We survey the state of the art and the future prospects of this field, discussing the major open problems and outlining the main ideas of the proofs whenever possible.