On the lattice Hadwiger number of superballs and some other bodies (Q2230921)

Let \(C\) be a convex body in a finite-dimensional vector space \({\mathbb R}^n\) . A Hadwiger family of \(C\) is a collection of translates of \(C\), all touching \(C\) and with pairwise disjoint interiors. The Hadwiger number (or translative kissing number) \(H(C)\) of \(C\) is the maximum number of translates in a Hadwiger family of \(C\). In the present note the author is concerned only with the lattice Hadwiger number \(H_L(C)\) defined to be the largest size of a Hadwiger family \(\{v_i + C : i \in I \}\) of \(C\) that is contained in a lattice packing \(\{v + C : v \in \Lambda \}\), where \(\Lambda\) is a full rank lattice. \textit{C. Zong} [Contemp. Math. 453, 529--548 (2008; Zbl 1144.52020)] conjectured that \(H_L(C) \ge \Omega (c^n)\) for some absolute constant \(c > 1\). The author recently [Mosc. J. Comb. Number Theory 8, No. 2, 163--177 (2019; Zbl 1448.11124)] confirmed the conjecture for the Euclidean ball \(B^n = B_2^n\) showing that \(H_L(B^n) \ge \kappa \cdot 1.015^n\) for an absolute constant \(\kappa > 0\). In the present note he showed that the same technique can prove the conjecture for many other bodies, for example, classical superballs, i.e., unit balls \(B^n_p\) in the finite-dimensional spaces \(l_p\), \(p \ge 1\), as well as for some of their generalizations. Namely, for the superballs it holds \(H_L(B^n_p) \ge \Omega (c^n)\) with \(c = 2^M = (63 \cdot 2^{-41/7})^{1/64} > 1.0013\).