English

Combinatorial characterization of pseudometrics

Metric Geometry 2019-11-11 v3

Abstract

Let XX, YY be sets and let Φ\Phi, Ψ\Psi be mappings with the domains X2X^{2} and Y2Y^{2} respectively. We say that Φ\Phi is combinatorially similar to Ψ\Psi if there are bijections f ⁣:Φ(X2)Ψ(Y2)f \colon \Phi(X^2) \to \Psi(Y^{2}) and g ⁣:YXg \colon Y \to X such that Ψ(x,y)=f(Φ(g(x),g(y)))\Psi(x, y) = f(\Phi(g(x), g(y))) for all xx, yYy \in Y. It is shown that the semigroups of binary relations generated by sets {Φ1(a) ⁣:aΦ(X2)}\{\Phi^{-1}(a) \colon a \in \Phi(X^{2})\} and {Ψ1(b) ⁣:bΨ(Y2)}\{\Psi^{-1}(b) \colon b \in \Psi(Y^{2})\} are isomorphic for combinatorially similar Φ\Phi and Ψ\Psi. The necessary and sufficient conditions under which a given mapping is combinatorially similar to a pseudometric, or strongly rigid pseudometric, or discrete pseudometric are found. The algebraic structure of semigroups generated by {d1(r) ⁣:rd(X2)}\{d^{-1}(r) \colon r \in d(X^{2})\} is completely described for nondiscrete, strongly rigid pseudometrics and, also, for discrete pseudometrics d ⁣:X2Rd \colon X^{2} \to \mathbb{R}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1906.07411,
  title  = {Combinatorial characterization of pseudometrics},
  author = {O. Dovgoshey and J. Luukkainen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.07411},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

35 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T09:56:35.391Z