Approximation Relations on the Posets of Pseudoultrametrics

Abstract

In this paper we study pseudoultrametrics, which are a natural mixture of ultrametrics and pseudometrics. They satisfy a stronger form of the triangle inequality than usual pseudometrics and naturally arise in problems of classification and recognition. The text focuses on the natural partial order on the set of all pseudoultrametrics on a fixed (not necessarily finite) set. In addition to the “way below” relation induced by a partial order, we introduce its version which we call “weakly way below”. It is shown that a pseudoultrametric should satisfy natural conditions closely related to compactness, for the set of all pseudoultrametric weakly way below it to be non-trivial (to consist not only of the zero pseudoultrametric). For non-triviality of the set of all pseudoultrametrics way below a given one, the latter must be compact. On the other hand, each compact pseudoultrametric is the least upper bound of the directed set of all pseudoultrametrics way below it, which are compact as well. Thus it is proved that the set CPsU(X) of all compact pseudoultrametric on a set X is a continuous poset. This shows that compactness is a crucial requirement for efficiency of approximation in methods of classification by means of ultrapseudometrics.