Semigroup-valued metric spaces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unifying framework called semigroup-valued metric spaces that generalizes various known Ramsey classes, studies their properties, and solves open problems related to their automorphism extensions.

Contribution

It develops a universal framework for semigroup-valued metric spaces, extending known results and addressing open problems in the structure and automorphism properties of these classes.

Findings

Reproves known results on Sauer's $S$-metric spaces

Extends results to Conant’s generalized metric spaces and $\Lambda$-ultrametric spaces

Solves open problems on EPPA for several classes

Abstract

The structural Ramsey theory is a field on the boundary of combinatorics and model theory with deep connections to topological dynamics. Most of the known Ramsey classes in finite binary symmetric relational language can be shown to be Ramsey by utilizing a variant of the shortest path completion (e.g. Sauer's $S$-metric spaces, Conant's generalised metric spaces, Braunfeld's $\Lambda$-ultrametric spaces or Cherlin's metrically homogeneous graphs). In this thesis we explore the limits of the shortest path completion. We offer a unifying framework --- semigroup-valued metric spaces --- for all the aforementioned Ramsey classes and study their Ramsey expansions and EPPA (the extension property for partial automorphisms). Our results can be seen as evidence for the importance of studying the completion problem for amalgamation classes and have some further applications (such as the stationary independence relation). As a corollary of our general theorems, we reprove results of Hubi\v{c}ka and Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il on Sauer's $S$-metric spaces, results of Hub\v{c}ka, Ne\v{s}et\v{r}il and the author on Conant's generalised metric spaces, Braunfeld's results on $\Lambda$-ultrametric spaces and the results of Aranda et al. on Cherlin's primitive 3-constrained metrically homogeneous graphs. We also solve several open problems such as EPPA for $\Lambda$-ultrametric spaces, $S$-metric spaces or Conant's generalised metric spaces. Our framework seems to be universal enough that we conjecture that every primitive strong amalgamation class of complete edge-labelled graphs with finitely many labels is in fact a class of semigroup-valued metric spaces.