Search arXivSearch

arXiv · 2603.20177

Universality of Lipschitz quotients and the curve-flat index

Abstract

We study universality of Lipschitz quotients. First, we modify a construction of Johnson, Lindenstrauss, Preiss and Schechtman to obtain a complete separable metric space that has every complete separable metric space as a Lipschitz quotient. Our main result is in the compact setting, where we prove that no such universal metric space can exist. We deduce this impossibility result by studying the curve-flat index, an ordinal index which provides a measure of the complexity of the curve-fragment structure in a metric space. We show that Lipschitz quotients cannot increase this index in compact domains; while there exist compact spaces with arbitrarily high countable curve-flat index. The main technical part of the paper is dedicated to proving a strong version of the latter fact: for every ordinal $\alpha$ and every compact metric space $M$, there exists a compact metric space $N$ such that the curve-flat quotient of $N$ of order $\alpha$ is almost-isometric to $M$.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Jaan Kristjan Kaasik, Andrés Quilis. 2026-03-20. Universality of Lipschitz quotients and the curve-flat index. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.20177

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Tile sets consisting of two types of concave polygons derived from periodic tilings corresponding to non-periodic tilings with hat and turtle tiles

Using a convex pentagonal monotile belonging to the Type 5 family, we investigate the relationships among the hat tile, turtle tile, and Tile$(1, 1)$. By applying Sugimoto's Perspective and Amfirifma's Perspective, we obtain four types of concave polygons, AH-tile, BH-tile, AT-tile, and BT-tile, each having Heesch number 1 under the conditions considered. We show that these polygons correspond to clusters used to generate the non-periodic tilings $\mathscr{T}_h$ and $\mathscr{T}_s$. We further discuss the possibility that tile sets consisting of pairs selected from these polygons may correspond to $\textit{ASPmr}\{\text{A-tile}, \text{B-tile}\}$.

math.MG

The mean distance to a simple closed curve on the sphere

Kimberling's Problem 10 asks for a simple closed curve of prescribed length $L$ (in particular, $L=4\pi$) on the unit sphere minimizing the mean geodesic distance $\mathcal{J}$ from a point of the sphere to the curve. For a positive integer $n$, put $\vartheta_{n}=\pi/(2n)$ and $L_{n}=2\pi/\sin\vartheta_{n}$. We show that the minimum of $\mathcal{J}$ over rectifiable simple closed curves of length at most $L_{n}$ equals $\vartheta_{n}-\tan(\vartheta_{n}/2)$, that it is attained only by curves of length exactly $L_{n}$, and that the sphere-filling ropes $\beta^{n,k}$ of Gerlach and von der Mosel attain it. Kimberling's case is $n=3$: at $L=4\pi$ the minimum is $\pi/6+\sqrt{3}-2=0.255649\ldots$, attained by an explicit six-arc curve and by its mirror image. For $L\le2\pi$ we determine $J(L)$, the infimum of $\mathcal{J}$ over curves of length $L$, exactly: it equals $\pi/2-L/(2\pi)$, attained precisely by the circles of length $L$. At the lengths $L_{n}$ we do not classify all minimizers, but show that every one of them bisects the sphere into two disks of area $2\pi$ and inradius $\vartheta_{n}$ whose inward collars have the largest possible area at every depth. The great circle is the only minimizer for $n=1$, and the $\beta^{n,k}$ are, up to congruence, the only ones of thickness at least $\sin\vartheta_{n}$. For arbitrary $L$ the function $J$ is nonincreasing, and together with the above this brackets it between two explicit values.

math.MG

The topology of Gromov--Hausdorff space

We prove that the Gromov--Hausdorff space is homeomorphic to the Hilbert space. This paper is divided into four parts. In Part I, we construct an assignment of a full-support probability measure to every nonempty compact metric space that respects isometries and is continuous for simultaneous Hausdorff convergence of the spaces and weak convergence of the measures. In Part II, we use these measures to construct finite-dimensional local models whose induced pseudometrics approximate the original distances uniformly and whose norms and point maps vary continuously up to orthogonal changes of coordinates. In Part III, we use the local models to prove that the Gromov--Hausdorff space is an absolute retract for all metrizable spaces. In Part IV, we establish a discrete approximation property and conclude that the space of isometry classes of nonempty compact metric spaces is homeomorphic to the real separable infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.

math.MG