Fundamental polytopes of metric trees via parallel connections of matroids

Abstract: We tackle the problem of a combinatorial classification of finite metric spaces via their fundamental polytopes, as suggested by Vershik in 2010. In this paper we consider a hyperplane arrangement associated to every split pseudometric and, for tree-like metrics, we study the combinatorics of its underlying matroid. We give explicit formulas for the face numbers of fundamental polytopes and Lipschitz polytopes of all tree-like metrics, and we characterize the metric trees for which the fundamental polytope is simplicial.

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A metric space \((Y, d)\) is tree-like if and only if the Buneman four-point condition \[ d(x, y) + d(z, t) \leqslant \max\{d(x, z) + d(y, t), d(x, t) + d(y, z)\} \] holds for all \(x\), \(y\), \(z\), \(t \in Y\). Let \((X, \rho)\) be a finite metric space and \(\mathbb{R}^{X}\) be the linear space of all real-valued functions on \(X\). Every element \(x \in X\) can be naturally identified with the delta function \(\delta_x \colon X \to \mathbb{R}\) satisfying the equalities \(\delta_x(x) = 1\) and \(\delta_x(y) = 0\) whenever \(y \neq x\), \(y \in X\). The fundamental polytope of \((X, \rho)\) is the convex hull (in \(\mathbb{R}^{X}\)) of the set of all vectors \[ e_{x, y} = \frac{\delta_x - \delta_y}{\rho(x, y)}, \] where \(x\) and \(y\) are distinct points of \(X\). The authors investigate finite tree-like metric spaces via their fundamental polytopes. In particular, some explicit formulas are given for the face numbers of fundamental polytopes of all tree-like metric spaces and a characterization of metric trees with simplicial fundamental polytopes is obtained. The study of fundamental polytopes was proposed by \textit{A. M. Vershik} [Arnold Math. J. 1, No. 1, 75--81 (2015; Zbl 1348.54021)] as a basis for combinatorial classification of finite metric spaces.

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