Cardinalities of primitive fixing systems for convex bodies (Q1580744)

Let \(M\subset {\mathbb R}^n\) be a compact, convex body. A set \(F\subset \text{bd }M\) is fixing system for \(M\) if for any nonzero vector \(v\) there is a real number \(\lambda >0\) such that the translate \(\lambda v+ \text{int}M\) of the interior of \(M\) has a point in common with \(F\). A fixing system \(F\subset \text{bd } M\) is primitive if no proper subset \(F'\subset F\) is a fixing system for \(M\). The maximal cardinality of primitive fixing systems for \(M\) is denoted by \(\rho_{\max}(M)\). \(\text{md }M\) stands for the maximin dependence functional on \(M\); \(\text{md }M\) is equal to the Helly dimension of \(M\). The authors prove a statement that provides the exact upper bound for the cardinalities of primitive fixing systems for any compact convex body. The theorem is as follows. Let \(M\subset {\mathbb R}^n\) be a compact convex body. If \(\text{md }M=1\), then \(\rho _{\max (M)}=2n\). If \(\text{md }M=2\), then \(\rho _{\max}\leq {9\over 2}n+\alpha _n\), where \(\alpha _n\) is equal to \(0, -{5\over 2}, -3\) or \(-{11\over 2}\) if \(n\) is congruent to \(0, 1, 2\) or \(3\pmod 4\) respectively. If \(\text{md }M\geq 3\), then \(\rho _{\max}\leq\infty\). All these estimates are exact, that is, there exists a compact convex body \(M\subset {\mathbb R}^n\) with the prescribed \(\text{md }M\) for which the indicated upper bound is attained.