Geometry and volume product of finite dimensional Lipschitz-free spaces

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to study geometric and extremal properties of the convex body $B_{\mathcal F(M)}$, which is the unit ball of the Lipschitz-free Banach space associated with a finite metric space $M$. We investigate $\ell_1$ and $\ell_\infty$-sums, in particular we characterize the metric spaces such that $B_{\mathcal F(M)}$ is a Hanner polytope. We also characterize the finite metric spaces whose Lipschitz-free spaces are isometric. We discuss the extreme properties of the volume product $\mathcal{P}(M)=|B_{\mathcal F(M)}|\cdot|B_{\mathcal F(M)}^\circ|$, when the number of elements of $M$ is fixed. We show that if $\mathcal P(M)$ is maximal among all the metric spaces with the same number of points, then all triangle inequalities in $M$ are strict and $B_{\mathcal F(M)}$ is simplicial. We also focus on the metric spaces minimizing $\mathcal P(M)$, and in the Mahler's conjecture for this class of convex bodies.