On the kissing numbers of some special convex bodies (Q1283769)

The authors investigate the translative kissing number \(N(K)\) and the lattice kissing number \(N^*(K)\) of an \(n\)-dimensional convex body. Although the problems date back to Newton, these numbers are only known in a few number of cases. The authors determine these numbers for octahedra, rhombic dodecahedra and elongated octahedra. They further give an exponential lower bound for high-dimensional superballs. The translative kissing number for tetrahedra is 18, as was just shown by \textit{I. Talata} [Discrete Comp. Geom. 22, 231-248 (1999)].