Penumbras and separation of convex sets (Q2034871)

The penumbra \(P(K_1,K_2)\) of two convex \(K_1\) and \(K_2\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is the set of all points of the form \(x_1+\alpha(x_2-x_1)\) with \(x_1\in K_1\), \(x_2\in K_2\) and \(\alpha\ge 0\). In other words, \(P(K_1, K_2)\) can be described as \(K_1+\mathrm{cone}(K_2 -K_1)\), where \(\mathrm{cone}\) is the conic hull operation (this is mentioned in Theorem 10). The paper contains 13 theorems on intrinsic convex-geometric properties of penumbras. In particular, Theorems 1 and 2 are about properties related to common convex-geometric operations and functionals, including affine hull, relative interior, closure and the Hausdorff distance; Theorem 3 characterizes different versions of separation of \(K_1\) and \(K_2\) via separation of the respective penumbras \(P(K_1,K_2)\) and \(P(K_2,K_1)\); Theorem 4 deals with supporting hyperplanes of the topological closure of a penumbra and Theorem 5 describes the closure \(P(K_1,K_2)\) in terms of half-spaces that separate \(K_1\) from \(K_2\).