A geometric study of the split decomposition (Q2505228)

It is shown that any polyhedral convex function may be written in an essentially unique way as a weighted sum of distance functions to hyperplanes and another undecomposable polyhedral convex function. Dually this corresponds to obtaining the maximum zonotopic Minkowsky summand of a pointed polyhedron. Considering a finite metric as a particular discrete concave function this construction is shown to be equivalent to the Bandelt-Dress split decomposition for finite metric spaces [\textit{H.-J. Bandelt} and \textit{A. W. M. Dress}, Adv. Math. 92, No. 1, 47--105 (1992; Zbl 0789.54036)], which thereby also extends to certain non-metric discrete functions violating the triangle inequality. It is shown that the combinatorics of the splits involved in split decompositions correspond to geometric properties of a hyperplane arrangement and a point configuration.