On the Busemann-Petty problem for perturbations of the ball (Q1190141)

Let \(V_ n\) denote the \(n\)-dimensional Euclidean volume. Then for dimension \(n=2\) all centrally symmetric convex bodies \(K\), \(K'\) with centre at 0 have the following property: If \(V_{n-1}(K\cap L)<V_{n- 1}(K'\cap L)\) for each \((n-1)\)-dimensional subspace \(L\) of \(R^ n\) then \(V_ n(K)<V_ n(K')\). The author proves this Busemann-Petty property for \(K'=B_ 3\) and convex centrally symmetric bodies \(K\) which lie in a sufficiently small neighborhood of the Euclidean ball \(B_ 3\) (Theorem 1). The author's second result means that Theorem 1 does not hold in dimension \(n\geq 7\). That confirms results by K. Ball and A. Giannopoulos. The Busemann-Petty problem for \(n=4,5,6\) (also the above local problem) is still open.