Semicontinuity of betweenness functions (Q725653)

The authors consider ternary relations, where \([a,b,c]\) indicates that the ordered triple \(\langle a,b,c\rangle\) belongs to the relation. The intended meaning of \([a,b,c]\) is that \(b\) be `between' \(a\) and \(c\). In a metric space therefore \([a,b,c]\) could mean \(d(a,b)+d(b,c)=d(a,c)\), in a linearly ordered set it could express `\(a\leq b\leq c\) or \(c\leq b\leq a\)'; and in a topological space it could mean \(b\)~belongs to every subcontinuum that contains \(a\) and~\(c\). There is a natural notion of interval: \([a,c]=\{b:[a,b,c]\}\). Under mild assumptions on the relation and the underlying topological space the map \(\{x,y\}\mapsto[x,y]\) is a well-defined map from the set of unordered pairs to the family of closed subsets of the space. The main problem that the authors address is when this map is upper or lower semi-continuous. They obtain results for the metric betweenness relation above, especially for normed vector spaces and for the relation defined by continua.