Quasi-isometries between visual hyperbolic spaces (Q661331)

Hyperbolic approximation is a general construction for a metric space to produce an associated metric graph, constructed with help of an infinite number of decreasing balls in the space. Power quasi-symmetry is a notion on maps between metric spaces, which generalizes the notion of quasi isometric embeddings between metric spaces. The author proves that ``a power quasi-symmetric homeomorphism between two complete metric spaces can be extended to a quasi-isometry between their hyperbolic approximations. This is used to prove that two visual Gromov hyperbolic spaces are quasi-isometric, if and only if there is a power quasi-symmetric homeomorphism between their boundaries with bounded visual metrics''. In the case of trees, it is proved that ``if two geodesically complete trees are quasi-isometric, if and only if there is a power quasi-symmetric homeomorphism between their boundaries with visual metrics based at infinity''. The author also gives a ``characterization for a map to be power quasi-symmetric in terms of some relative distortion of subsets''. The article contains an introduction to the theory of metric spaces, particularly to Gromov hyperbolic spaces and hyperbolic approximation of metric spaces, which is quite readable.