The purpose of this paper is to establish a connection between the complexity of κ-ultrafilters over a measurable cardinal κ, and the existence of ascending Rudin-Keisler chains of κ-ultrafilters and of inner models with several measurable cardinals.

If V is a model of ZFC + “There exists a measurable cardinal κ”, then V satisfies “There exists a normal κ-ultrafilter”, that is to say a “simple” κ-ultrafilter. The only known examples of “complex” κ-ultrafilters have been constructed by Kanamori [2], Ketonen [4] and Kunen (cf. [2]) with stronger hypotheses than measurability: compactness or supercompactness. Using the notions of skies and constellations defined by Kanamori [2] for the measurable case, and which witness the complexity of a κ-ultrafilter, we shall show the necessity of such assumptions, namely:

Theorem 1. If λ < κ is a strongly inaccessible cardinal, the existence of a κ-ultrafilter with more than λ constellations implies that there is an inner model with two measurable cardinals if λ = ω and λ + 1 measurable cardinals otherwise.

Theorem 2. Let θ < κ be an arbitrary ordinal. If there is a κ-ultrafilter such that the order-type of its skies is greater than ωθ, then there exists an inner model with θ + 1 measurable cardinals.

And as a corollary, we obtain:

Theorem 3. Let μ < κ be a regular cardinal. If there exists a κ-ultrafilter containing the closed-unbounded subsets of κ and {α < κ: cf(α) = μ}, then there is an inner model with two measurable cardinals if μ = ω, and μ + 1 measurable cardinals otherwise.