A unified simple proof of a conjecture of Woods for \(n\leq 6\) (Q1017384)

The conjecture of Woods states that any unimodular lattice that satisfies some conditions on its Korkine-Zolotareff reduced basis has a covering radius of \(\frac{1}{2} \sqrt{n}\) (the orthogonal projections of the basis vectors have to be shorter than the first one). This conjecture implies another conjecture on the covering radius of well-rounded lattices which is considered as one of the two steps in the current approach to prove Minkowski's conjecture on the product of inhomogeneous linear forms [see \textit{C. T. McMullen}, J. Am. Math. Soc. 18, No. 3, 711--734 (2005; Zbl 1132.11034)]. The authors give here a unified proof of the conjecture of Woods up to dimension 6, which relies on a careful case by case analysis that resorts to classical inequalities by Korkine and Zolotareff and lemmas by Woods. Note that this method was further used in dimension 7 to prove the conjectures of Woods and Minkowski [J. Number Theory 129, No. 5, 1011--1033 (2009; Zbl 1175.11033)].