Generalizing the notion of a tight almost disjoint family, we introduce the notions of a tight eventually different family of functions in Baire space and a tight eventually different set of permutations of
$\omega $
. Such sets strengthen maximality, exist under
$\mathsf {MA} (\sigma \mathrm {-centered})$
and come with a properness preservation theorem. The notion of tightness also generalizes earlier work on the forcing indestructibility of maximality of families of functions. As a result we compute the cardinals
$\mathfrak {a}_e$
and
$\mathfrak {a}_p$
in many known models by giving explicit witnesses and therefore obtain the consistency of several constellations of cardinal characteristics of the continuum including
$\mathfrak {a}_e = \mathfrak {a}_p = \mathfrak {d} < \mathfrak {a}_T$
,
$\mathfrak {a}_e = \mathfrak {a}_p < \mathfrak {d} = \mathfrak {a}_T$
,
$\mathfrak {a}_e = \mathfrak {a}_p =\mathfrak {i} < \mathfrak {u}$
, and
$\mathfrak {a}_e=\mathfrak {a}_p = \mathfrak {a} < non(\mathcal N) = cof(\mathcal N)$
. We also show that there are
$\Pi ^1_1$
tight eventually different families and tight eventually different sets of permutations in L thus obtaining the above inequalities alongside
$\Pi ^1_1$
witnesses for
$\mathfrak {a}_e = \mathfrak {a}_p = \aleph _1$
.
Moreover, we prove that tight eventually different families are Cohen indestructible and are never analytic.