Hyperbolic Banach spaces I -- Directed completion of partial orders

Abstract: This note is to advertise the concept of directed completion of partial orders as the natural analogue of Cauchy-completion in Lorentzian signature, especially in relation to non-smooth and/or infinite dimensional geometries. A closely related notion appeared in the recent [2] where it was used as ground for further development of non-smooth calculus in metric spacetimes allowing, for instance, for a quite general limit curve theorem in such setting. The proposal in [2] was also in part motivated by the discussion we make here, key points being: - A general existence result, already obtained in the context of theoretical computer science and for which we give a slightly different presentation. - An example showing that an analogue two-sided completion is unsuitable from the (or at least `some') geometric/analytic perspective. - The existence of natural links with both the the concept of ideal point of Geroch--Kronheimer--Penrose and with Beppo Levi's monotone convergence theorem, showing in particular an underlying commonality between these two seemingly far concepts. - The flexibility of the notion, that by nature can cover non-smooth and infinite-dimensional situations. - The fact that the concept emerges spontaneously when investigating the duality relations between $L^p$ and $L^q$ spaces where $\tfrac1p+\tfrac 1q = 1$ are H\"older conjugate exponents with $p, q < 1$. This note is part of a larger work in progress that aims at laying the grounds of a Lorentzian, or Hyperbolic, theory of Banach spaces. Given that the notion of completion has nothing to do with the linear structure and the growing interest around this topic, for instance related to convergence of geometric structures, we make available these partial findings.