Tropical mixtures of star tree metrics (Q1928581)

A \textit tree semimetric \textrm on the set \([n]=\{1,\dots, n\}\) is a semimetric coming from a tree with leaf set \([n]\) endowed with nonnegative edgelengths. The paper gives the chatacterization of tree semimetrics \(D\) that can be represented in the form \[ D(i,j)=\max (d(i)+d(j),\bar d (i)+\bar d(j)), \qquad d(i), \bar d(i)\geq 0, \] i.e., as a \textit tropical mixture \textrm of two \textit star tree semimetrics. \textrm It turns out that these semimetrics are the ones coming from a tree with at most one internal edge, with edgeweights subject to certain linear inequalities. The set of solutions \((d,\bar d)\) for a given such \(D\) is also described. An interpretation of these results in the framework of tropical secant varieties is given. The paper ends with a simple example of a tree semimetric (in fact, a cut semimetric) that is not a tropical mixture of finitely many star tree semimetrics.