Bounds for hyperspheres of prescribed Gaussian curvature (Q1117480)

Apriori supremum bounds are established for solutions of A. D. Alexandrov's problem for prescribing the Gauss curvatures of hypersurfaces in Euclidean space. If \(R=r(x)x\) is the coordinate of a convex hypersurface \(M^ n\) about the origin in \(R^{n+1}\) and R: \(S^ n\to M\) is the radial projection and v: \(M\to S^ n\) is the Gauss map, then the pulled back area measure \(\mu =R^*v^*da\) is nonnegative, completely additive on the Borel subsets of \(S^ n\). Alexandrov gave sufficient conditions for reconstructing M from \(\mu\), but only argued that \(\rho (M)=\sup r/\inf r<\infty.\) A necessary and sufficient estimate on \(\rho\) is given in terms of \(\mu\). Theorem. If \(\mu\) is a nonnegative, completely additive function on \(\Omega\), the set of Borel subsets of \(S^ n\) such that \(\mu (S^ n)=| S^ n|\) and for some \(0<\alpha <\pi /2\), \(\mu (F)\leq | F_{\alpha}|\) for all \(F\in \Omega\) where \(F_{\alpha}\) is the \(\alpha\)-neighborhood of F, then there is a \(c(\alpha,n)<\infty\) such that any convex hypersurface M satisfying \(\mu (F)=| v(R(F))|\) for all \(F\in \Omega\) has \(\rho (M)\leq c(\alpha,n).\) Conversely, suppose \(M^ n\) is a convex hypersurface about the origin in Euclidean space. If \(\rho (M)<\infty\), then there exist \(\alpha (\rho)<\pi /2\) so that \(| v(R(F))| \leq | F_{\alpha}|\) for all \(F\in \Omega.\) For smooth hyperspheres, this corresponds to finding apriori oscillation bounds for a certain homothety invariant Monge-Ampère equation on the sphere. An example is given which shows that it is not enough to give a condition only on the convex subsets of the sphere as in Alexandrov's original assumption for finiteness.