A natural compactification of the Gromov-Hausdorff space (Q6091838)

This article gives two compactifications of the Gromov-Hausdorff space \(\mathcal{H}\), that is, the metric space of isometry classes of compact metric spaces equipped with the Gromov-Hausdorff metric. To establish the compactifications, the authors introduce a generalized notion of metric spaces, the extended metric spaces, where the distance function can take the values \(+\infty\). Denote the space of isometry classes of extended metric spaces by \(\mathcal{M}\). The authors introduce an equivalence relation \(\sim\) on \(\mathcal{M}\), such that for compact metric spaces \(X,Y\), \(X\sim Y\) is equivalent to being isometric. Then the authors define a pseudometric \(\rho\) on \(\mathcal{M}\) where \(\rho(X,Y)=0\) is equivalent to \(X\sim Y\). This means that we have an induced metric on \(\mathcal{M}/ \sim\). The main theorem says that \(\mathcal{M}/\sim\) is a compactification of \(\mathcal{H}\) and the natural embedding is a \(3\)-Lipschitz map. However, this compacification is not suitable for studying metric spaces with infinite diameters. The authors then focus on the space of pointed metric spaces. They introduce a strong equivalence relation \(\simeq\) on pointed metric spaces and another pseudometric which shares a similar property like the previous one. They show that the equivalence class of isometry classes of pointed geodesic metric spaces endowed with the new metric is a compactification of the family of isometry classes of pointed proper geodesic metric spaces equipped with the pointed Gromov-Hausdorff topology.