Lattice Diversities

Abstract: Diversities are a generalization of metric spaces, where instead of the non-negative function being defined on pairs of points, it is defined on arbitrary finite sets of points. Diversities have a well-developed theory. This includes the concept of a diversity tight span that extends the metric tight span in a natural way. Here we explore the generalization of diversities to lattices. Instead of defining diversities on finite subsets of a set we consider diversities defined on members of an arbitrary lattice (with a 0). We show that many of the basic properties of diversities continue to hold. However, the natural map from a lattice diversity to its tight span is not a lattice homomorphism, preventing the development of a complete tight span theory as in the metric and diversity cases.