Mean width of regular polytopes and expected maxima of correlated Gaussian variables (Q1683204)

The authors study the question of how to arrange \(n+1\) points on the \((n-1)\)-dimensional unit sphere so as to maximize the \textit{mean width} of their convex hull. An old conjecture states that the arrangement must be \textit{regular}. The authors use the fact that the mean width is a multiple of the first intrinsic volume, \(V_1\), of the body and reformulate the conjecture as \[ \sup_{x_1, \ldots, x_{n+1} \in \mathbb{S}^{n-1} } V_1( \mathrm{conv}(x_1, \ldots, x_{n+1}) ) = V(T_n), \] in which \(T_n\) is a regular simplex with \(n+1\) vertices inscribed in the sphere \(\mathbb{S}^{n-1}\) and \(\mathrm{conv}\) denotes the convex hull of the set of points. In Theorem 1.2 it is shown that this conjecture holds asymptotically. Moreover, Corollary 2.2 and Corollary 2.4 settle a special case and explain how the first intrinsic volume of the crosspolytope \(C_n\) with \(2n\) vertices is related to the first intrinsic volume of the regular simplex \(T_{2n-1}\) with the same number of vertices. Finally, the authors apply their results to regular polytopes and establish several formulas that were conjectured by Finch.