Common maxima of distance functions on orientable Alexandrov surfaces (Q2478641)

On a compact 2-dimensional Alexandrov space S without boundary and with curvature bounded below, denote by \(\rho (x,y)\) the distance between any two points \(x,y \in S\), by \(M_x\) the set of all relative maxima of the distance function \(\rho_x\) from \(x\), where \(\rho_x (y) = \rho (x,y)\), and let \(M^{-1}_y=\{x \in S: y \in M_x\}\). For S orientable, it is proved that the components of the sets \(M^{-1}_y\) are arcwise connected and their number is at most \(1,10\text{\,g} -5\), where g is the genus of S. The space \(T_y\) of all unit tangent directions at \(y \in S\) is a closed Jordan curve of length \(\lambda T_y\) at most \(2\pi\) [\textit{Y. Burago, M. Gromov} and \textit{G. Perelman}, Russ. Math. Surveys 47 (1992)]. If \(\lambda T_y > \pi\) then \(M^{-1}_y\) is a local tree (a tree if g = 0); a dependence between \(\lambda T_y\) and \(M^{-1}_y\) is given in this case and, as a consequence, it is obtained that a convex surface contains at most 7 points y such that \(M^{-1}_y\) is a tree with at least 3 extremities. Several examples are given at the end.