Critical embeddings

Abstract Hayut and the first author isolated the notion of a critical cardinal in [1]. In this work, we answer several questions raised in the original paper. We show that it is consistent for a critical cardinal not to have any ultrapower elementary embeddings, as well as that it is consistent that no target model is closed. We also prove that if $$\kappa $$ κ is a critical point by any ultrapower embedding, then it is the critical point of an ultrapower embedding by a normal measure. The paper concludes by presenting several open questions of interest in the study of critical cardinals.