Chang's Conjecture, club-increasing sequences, and P_max forcing, part 1

The consistency of the Chang's Conjecture (CC) variant (aleph_{omega + 1}, aleph_omega) ->> (aleph_2, aleph_1) is a major open question. A combinatorial consequence of this instance of CC is the existence of a certain strongly increasing sequence, of length aleph_2, of functions from omega to some fixed ordinal below omega_2 (we are calling such a sequence a club-increasing sequence). In response to a question from the speaker, Paul Larson proved the consistency of the existence of a club-increasing sequence of length aleph_2 using a P_max forcing variation. In this talk, we will prove some basic results about club-increasing sequences, including the facts that their existence follows from the relevant instance of CC and that club-increasing sequences of length omega_n do not exist for n at least 4. We will then give an introduction to P_max forcing, in preparation for a future talk in which we will present a sketch of Larson's proof.