On the preserved extremal structure of Lipschitz-free spaces

Abstract: We characterize preserved extreme points of Lipschitz-free spaces $\mathcal{F}(X)$ in terms of simple geometric conditions on the underlying metric space $(X,d)$. Namely, each preserved extreme point corresponds to a pair of points $p,q$ in $X$ such that the triangle inequality $d(p,q)\leq d(p,r)+d(q,r)$ is uniformly strict for $r$ away from $p,q$. For compact $X$, this condition reduces to the triangle inequality being strict. This result gives an affirmative answer to a conjecture of N. Weaver that compact spaces are concave if and only if they have no triple of metrically aligned points.