On countable choice and sequential spaces

Under the axiom of choice, every first countable space is a Fréchet‐Urysohn space. Although, in its absence even ? may fail to be a sequential space. Our goal in this paper is to discuss under which set‐theoretic conditions some topological classes, such as the first countable spaces, the metric spaces, or the subspaces of ?, are classes of Fréchet‐Urysohn or sequential spaces. In this context, it is seen that there are metric spaces which are not sequential spaces. This fact raises the question of knowing if the completion of a metric space exists and it is unique. The answer depends on the definition of completion. Among other results it is shown that: every first countable space is a sequential space if and only if the axiom of countable choice holds, the sequential closure is idempotent in ? if and only if the axiom of countable choice holds for families of subsets of ?, and every metric space has a unique ‐completion. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

On Ozawa kernels

We write explicitly Ozawa kernels for group extensions, for discrete metric spaces of finite asymptotic dimension, of large enough Hilbert space compression, and for suitable actions of countable groups on metric spaces. We also obtain an alternative proof of stability results concerning Yu's property A.     

Completions of partial metrics into value lattices

In this paper we investigate some notions of completion of partial metric spaces, including the bicompletion, the Smyth completion, and a new “spherical completion”. Given an auxiliary relation, we show that it arises from a totally bounded partial metric space, and the spherical completion of such a space is its round ideal completion. We also give an example of a totally bounded partial metric space whose bicompletion and Smyth completion are not continuous posets. Finally, we present an example of a totally bounded partial metric giving rise to the Scott and lower topologies of a continuous poset, but whose spherical completion is not a continuous poset.     

On some results of analysis for fuzzy metric spaces

A necessary and sufficient condition for a fuzzy metric space to be complete is given. We prove that a subspace of a separable fuzzy metric space is separable and every separable fuzzy metric space is second countable. Uniform limit theorem is generalized to fuzzy metric spaces.     

On the fundamental groups of one-dimensional spaces

We study here a number of questions raised by examining the fundamental groups of complicated one-dimensional spaces. The first half of the paper considers one-dimensional spaces as such. The second half proves related results for general spaces that are needed in the first half but have independent interest. Among the results we prove are the theorem that the fundamental group of a separable, connected, locally path connected, one-dimensional metric space is free if and only if it is countable if and only if the space has a universal cover and the theorem that the fundamental group of a compact, one-dimensional, connected metric space embeds in an inverse limit of finitely generated free groups and is shape injective.     

Topological classification of scattered IFS-attractors

We study countable compact spaces as potential attractors of iterated function systems. We give an example of a convergent sequence in the real line which is not an IFS-attractor and for each countable ordinal δ   we show that a countable compact space of height δ+1$\delta +1$ can be embedded in the real line so that it becomes the attractor of an IFS. On the other hand, we show that a scattered compact metric space of limit height is never an IFS-attractor.     

The D-property in unions of scattered spaces

We show in a direct way that a space is D if it is a finite union of subparacompact scattered spaces. This result cannot be extended to countable unions, since it is known that there is a regular space which is a countable union of paracompact scattered spaces and which is not D. Nevertheless, we show that every space which is the union of countably many regular Lindelöf C-scattered spaces has the D-property. Also, we prove that a space is D if it is a locally finite union of regular Lindelöf C-scattered spaces.     

Weil-Petersson geometry of Teichmüller–Coxeter complex and its finite rank property

On a Teichmüller space, the Weil-Petersson metric is known to be incomplete. Taking metric and geodesic completions result in two distinct spaces, where the Hopf-Rinow theorem is no longer relevant due to the singular behavior of the Weil-Petersson metric. We construct a geodesic completion of the Teichmüller space through the formalism of Coxeter complex with the Teichmüller space as its non-linear non-homogeneous fundamental domain. We then show that the metric and geodesic completions both satisfy a finite rank property, demonstrating a similarity with the non-compact symmetric spaces of semi-simple Lie groups.     

Cone metric spaces and fixed point theorems in diametrically contractive mappings

In this paper, some topological concepts and definitions are generalized to cone metric spaces. It is proved that every cone metric space is first countable topological space and that sequentially compact subsets axe compact. Also, we define diametrically contractive mappings and asymptotically diametrically contractive mappings on cone metric spaces to obtain some fixed point theorems by assuming that our cone is strongly minihedral.     

On local comparison between various metrics on Teichmüller spaces

There are several Teichmüller spaces associated to a surface of infinite topological type, after the choice of a particular basepoint (a complex or a hyperbolic structure on the surface). Such spaces include the quasiconformal Teichmüller space, the length spectrum Teichmüller space, the Fenchel-Nielsen Teichmüller space, and there are others. In general, these spaces are set-theoretically different. An important question is therefore to understand relations between them. Each of these spaces is equipped with its own metric, and under some hypotheses, there are inclusions between them. In this paper, we obtain local metric comparison results on these inclusions, namely, we show that the inclusions are locally bi-Lipschitz under certain hypotheses. To obtain these results, we use some hyperbolic geometry estimates that give new results also for surfaces of finite type. We recall that in the case of a surface of finite type, all these Teichmüller spaces coincide setwise. In the case of a surface of finite type with no boundary components (but possibly with punctures), we show that the restriction of the identity map to any thick part of Teichmüller space is globally bi-Lipschitz with respect to the length spectrum metric on the domain and the classical Teichmüller metric on the range. In the case of a surface of finite type with punctures and boundary components, there is a metric on the Teichmüller space which we call the arc metric, whose definition is analogous to the length spectrum metric, but which uses lengths of geodesic arcs instead of lengths of closed geodesics. We show that the restriction of the identity map to any “relative thick” part of Teichmüller space is globally bi-Lipschitz, with respect to any of the three metrics: the length spectrum metric, the Teichmüller metric and the arc metric on the domain and on the range.     

THE FUNCTIONAL DIMENSION OF SOME CLASSES OF SPACES

The functional dimension of countable Hilbert spaces has been discussed by some authors. They showed that every countable Hilbert space with finite functional dimension is nuclear. In this paper the authors do further research on the functional dimension, and obtain the following results: (1) They construct a countable Hilbert space, which is nuclear, but its functional dimension is infinite. (2) The functional dimension of a Banach space is finite if and only if this space is finite dimensional. (3) Let B be a Banach space, B* be its dual, and denote the weak * topology of B* by σ(B*,B). Then the functional dimension of (B*,σ(B*,B)) is 1. By the third result, a class of topological linear spaces with finite functional dimension is presented.     

Postnikov factorizations at infinity

We have developed Postnikov sections for Brown–Grossman homotopy groups and for Steenrod homotopy groups in the category of exterior spaces, which is an extension of the proper category. The homotopy fibre of a fibration in the factorization associated with Brown–Grossman groups is an Eilenberg–Mac Lane exterior space for this type of groups and it has two non-trivial consecutive Steenrod homotopy groups. For a space which is first countable at infinity, one of these groups is given by the inverse limit of the homotopy groups of the neighbourhoods at infinity, the other group is isomorphic to the first derived of the inverse limit of this system of groups. In the factorization associated with Steenrod groups the homotopy fibre is an Eilenberg–Mac Lane exterior space for this type of groups and it has two non-trivial consecutive Brown–Grossman homotopy groups. We also obtain a mix factorization containing both kinds of previous factorizations and having homotopy fibres which are Eilenberg–Mac Lane exterior spaces for both kinds of groups.Given a compact metric space embedded in the Hilbert cube, its open neighbourhoods provide the Hilbert cube the structure of an exterior space and the homotopy fibres of the factorizations above are Eilenberg–Mac Lane exterior spaces with respect to inward (or approaching) Quigley groups.     

Means in metric spaces and the center of mass

In this article k-convex metric spaces are considered where a several variable mapping is provided as a limit point of an iteration scheme based on the midpoint map in the metric space itself. This mapping, considered as a mean of its variables, has some properties which relates it to the center of mass of these variables in the metric space. Sufficient conditions are given here for the two points to be identical, as well as upper bounds on their distances from one another. The asymptotic rate of convergence of the iterative process defining the mean is also determined here. The case of the symmetric space on the convex cone of positive definite matrices related to the geometric mean and the special orthogonal group are also studied here as examples of k-convex metric spaces.     

Dimension zero at all scales

We consider the notion of dimension in four categories: the category of (unbounded) separable metric spaces and (metrically proper) Lipschitz maps, and the category of (unbounded) separable metric spaces and (metrically proper) uniform maps. A unified treatment is given to the large scale dimension and the small scale dimension. We show that in all categories a space has dimension zero if and only if it is equivalent to an ultrametric space. Also, 0-dimensional spaces are characterized by means of retractions to subspaces. There is a universal zero-dimensional space in all categories. In the Lipschitz Category spaces of dimension zero are characterized by means of extensions of maps to the unit 0-sphere. Any countable group of asymptotic dimension zero is coarsely equivalent to a direct sum of cyclic groups. We construct uncountably many examples of coarsely inequivalent ultrametric spaces.     

Indivisible ultrametric spaces

A metric space is indivisible if for any partition of it into finitely many pieces one piece contains an isometric copy of the whole space. Continuing our investigation of indivisible metric spaces [C. Delhommé, C. Laflamme, M. Pouzet, N. Sauer, Divisibility of countable metric spaces, European J. Combin. 28 (2007) 1746-1769], we show that a countable ultrametric space is isometrically embeddable into an indivisible ultrametric space if and only if it does not contain a strictly increasing sequence of balls.     

Convergence in distribution of random metric measure spaces (Λ-coalescent measure trees)

We consider the space of complete and separable metric spaces which are equipped with a probability measure. A notion of convergence is given based on the philosophy that a sequence of metric measure spaces converges if and only if all finite subspaces sampled from these spaces converge. This topology is metrized following Gromov’s idea of embedding two metric spaces isometrically into a common metric space combined with the Prohorov metric between probability measures on a fixed metric space. We show that for this topology convergence in distribution follows—provided the sequence is tight—from convergence of all randomly sampled finite subspaces. We give a characterization of tightness based on quantities which are reasonably easy to calculate. Subspaces of particular interest are the space of real trees and of ultra-metric spaces equipped with a probability measure. As an example we characterize convergence in distribution for the (ultra-)metric measure spaces given by the random genealogies of the Λ-coalescents. We show that the Λ-coalescent defines an infinite (random) metric measure space if and only if the so-called “dust-free”-property holds.     

Advances in metric embedding theory

Metric Embedding plays an important role in a vast range of application areas such as computer vision, computational biology, machine learning, networking, statistics, and mathematical psychology, to name a few. The mathematical theory of metric embedding is well studied in both pure and applied analysis and has more recently been a source of interest for computer scientists as well. Most of this work is focused on the development of bi-Lipschitz mappings between metric spaces. In this paper we present new concepts in metric embeddings as well as new embedding methods for metric spaces. We focus on finite metric spaces, however some of the concepts and methods are applicable in other settings as well.One of the main cornerstones in finite metric embedding theory is a celebrated theorem of Bourgain which states that every finite metric space on n points embeds in Euclidean space with distortion. Bourgain?s result is best possible when considering the worst case distortion over all pairs of points in the metric space. Yet, it is natural to ask: can an embedding do much better in terms of the average distortion? Indeed, in most practical applications of metric embedding the main criteria for the quality of an embedding is its average distortion over all pairs.In this paper we provide an embedding with constant average distortion for arbitrary metric spaces, while maintaining the same worst case bound provided by Bourgain?s theorem. In fact, our embedding possesses a much stronger property. We define the ?q-distortion of a uniformly distributed pair of points. Our embedding achieves the best possible ?q-distortion for all 1?q?∞simultaneously.The results are based on novel embedding methods which improve on previous methods in another important aspect: the dimension of the host space. The dimension of an embedding is of very high importance in particular in applications and much effort has been invested in analyzing it. However, no previous result improved the bound on the dimension which can be derived from Bourgain?s embedding. Our embedding methods achieve better dimension, and in fact, shed new light on another fundamental question in metric embedding, which is: whether the embedding dimension of a metric space is related to its intrinsic dimension? I.e., whether the dimension in which it can be embedded in some real normed space is related to the intrinsic dimension which is reflected by the inherent geometry of the space, measured by the space?s doubling dimension. The existence of such an embedding was conjectured by Assouad,⁴and was later posed as an open problem in several papers. Our embeddings give the first positive result of this type showing any finite metric space obtains a low distortion (and constant average distortion) embedding in Euclidean space in dimension proportional to its doubling dimension.Underlying our results is a novel embedding method. Probabilistic metric decomposition techniques have played a central role in the field of finite metric embedding in recent years. Here we introduce a novel notion of probabilistic metric decompositions which comes particularly natural in the context of embedding. Our new methodology provides a unified approach to all known results on embedding of arbitrary finite metric spaces. Moreover, as described above, with some additional ideas they allow to get far stronger results.The results presented in this paper⁵have been the basis for further developments both within the field of metric embedding and in other areas such as graph theory, distributed computing and algorithms. We present a comprehensive study of the notions and concepts introduced here and provide additional extensions, related results and some examples of algorithmic applications.     

Homogeneous spaces of curvature bounded below

We prove that every locally connected quotient G/H of a locally compact, connected, first countable topological group G by a compact subgroup H admits a G-invariant inner metric with curvature bounded below. Every locally compact homogeneous space of curvature bounded below is isometric to such a space. These metric spaces generalize the notion of Riemannian homogeneous space to infinite dimensional groups and quotients which are never (even infinite dimensional) manifolds. We study the geometry of these spaces, in particular of non-negatively curved homogeneous spaces. Dedicated to the memory of A. D. Alexandrov     

Weak containment in the space of actions of a free group

It is shown that the translation action of the free group with n generators on its profinite completion is the maximum, in the sense of weak containment, measure preserving action of this group. Using also a result of Abért-Nikolov this is used to give a new proof of Gaboriau’s theorem that the cost of this group is equal to n. A similar maximality result is proved for generalized shift actions. Finally a study is initiated of the class of residually finite, countable groups for which the finite actions are dense in the space of measure preserving actions.     

Constructions preserving Hilbert space uniform embeddability of discrete groups

Uniform embeddability (in a Hilbert space), introduced by Gromov, is a geometric property of metric spaces. As applied to countable discrete groups, it has important consequences for the Novikov conjecture. Exactness, introduced and studied extensively by Kirchberg and Wassermann, is a functional analytic property of locally compact groups. Recently it has become apparent that, as properties of countable discrete groups, uniform embeddability and exactness are closely related. We further develop the parallel between these classes by proving that the class of uniformly embeddable groups shares a number of permanence properties with the class of exact groups. In particular, we prove that it is closed under direct and free products (with and without amalgam), inductive limits and certain extensions.