Another class of distances and continuous quasi-distances in product spaces (Q2443822)

A quasi-distance \(d\) on a set \(E\) is defined as a function \( d:E^{2}\rightarrow \left[ 0,\infty \right) \) with the usual properties of a metric except the triangle inequality: \[ d(x,y)\leq k\left[ d(x,z)+d(z,y)\right], \] where \(k\geq 1\). This function is not always continuous with respect to the \(d\)-topology generated by itself in the same manner as by a distance. It is known that, for every quasi-distance \(d\), there exists another quasi-distance \(d^{\prime }\), where topology and uniformity are the same as those of \(d\) and the open \( d^{\prime }\)-balls are open sets [\textit{R. A. Macias} and \textit{C. Segovia}, Adv. Math. 33, 257--270 (1979; Zbl 0431.46018)]. But if any condition or relation is satisfied with respect to a quasi-distance \(d\), we do not know if, in general, the same condition or relation will be satisfied with respect to the ``new'' quasi-distance \(d^{\prime }\), even if \(d\) is equivalent to \(d^{\prime }\). For this reason, the continuity of a quasi-distance cannot be omitted. The most interesting fact about the quasi-metric spaces is that, in many applications, they constitute a more general setting than the metric spaces without loosing the good properties of these last spaces. The author proved in her papers [``Continuous quasi-distances in product spaces'', Proceedings of the 4th International conference on Algebra and Functional Analysis, Albania, May (2010)], [``Continuous quasi-distances in product spaces'', Albanian Journal of Natural Technological Science 28, No. 2, 15--25 (2010)] that the functions defined in a product space for two points, \( P(x_{1},x_{2},\dots,x_{n})\) and \(Q(y_{1},y_{2},\dots,y_{n})\), respectively, by \[ d(P,Q)=\sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})\quad \left( =\sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}^{\prime }d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})\right), \] when \[ \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}\beta _{i}d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})\geq 0\quad\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}\beta _{i}d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})<0\right) \] and \[ d(P,Q)= \frac{\sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})}{1+\sum \limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})}\quad\left( =\frac{\sum \limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}^{\prime }d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})}{1+\sum \limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}^{\prime }d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})}\right), \] when \[ \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}\beta _{i}d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})\geq 0\quad\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}\beta _{i}d_{i}(x_{i},y_{i})<0\right) \] with \( a_{i}-a_{i}^{\prime }=\lambda \beta _{i}\) for all \(i\in I\), are distances when \(\lambda >0\), but only continuous quasi-distances when \(\lambda <0.\) In this paper, the author considers the same problem and obtains the same results for the functions \[ d(P,Q)=\sqrt{\sum \limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}^{2}d_{i}^{2}(x_{i},y_{i})}\quad\left( =\sqrt{ \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}a_{i}^{\prime 2}d_{i}^{2}(x_{i},y_{i})}\right), \] when \[ \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}\beta _{i}d_{i}^{2}(x_{i},y_{i})\geq 0\quad\left( \sum\limits_{i=1}^{n}\beta _{i}d_{i}^{2}(x_{i},y_{i})<0\right) \] with \[ a_{i}^{2}-a_{i}^{\prime 2}=\lambda \beta _{i}. \] Also, some further results are given for the quasi-triangle inequality.