Properties of the normed cone of semi-Lipschitz functions (Q2568508)

Let \(X\) be a set. A function \(d\colon X\times X \to \mathbb R^+\) is said to be a quasi-metric if (i) \(d(x,y)=d(y,x)=0\) if and only if \(x=y\), and (ii) \(d(x,z)\leq d(x,y)+d(y,z)\). If \(d\) can take the value \(\infty\) then it is called a quasi-distance on \(X\). A quasi-metric \(d(x,y)\) induces the metric \(d^s(x,y)= \max [d(x,y),d(y,x)]\). A real-valued function \(f: X \to\mathbb R\) is called semi-Lipschitz if there is \(k\geq 0\) such that \(f(x)-f(y) \leq k d(x,y)\). Of course every semi-Lipschitz function is Lipschitz with respect to the metric \(d^s(x,y)\), but not conversely. On the class \(\mathcal{SL}_0(d)\) of semi-Lipschitz functions vanishing at the fixed point \(x_0\) and such that \(f(x) \leq f(y)\) if \(d(x,y)=0\) the authors introduce a quasi-distance: \[ \rho_d(f,g) = \sup_{d(x,y)\not=0} {{((f-g)(x)-(f-g)(y))\vee 0}\over d(x,y)} \] for all \(f,g\in \mathcal{SL}_0(d)\). It is easy to check that the function \(\|\cdot \|_d\) defined on \(\mathcal{SL}_0(d)\) by \(\| f \|_d=\rho_d(f,0)\) is a norm on \(\mathcal{SL}_0(d)\). Therefore \((\mathcal{SL}_0(d),\| \cdot \|_d)\) is a normed cone. The authors discuss several properties of this normed cone. They prove, among other results, that \((\mathcal{SL}_0(d),\| \cdot \|_d)\) is both bicomplete and right \(K\)-sequentially complete, and that its unit ball is compact with respect to the topology of quasi-uniform convergence. Furthermore, it is a Banach space if and only if \((X,d)\) is a metric space. Several illustrative examples are given; in particular, the authors apply their results to the Khalimsky line and the domain of words, respectively.