On a normed version of a Rogers-Shephard type problem (Q2630866)

A geometric problem initiated by Rogers and Shephard asks for the extremizers of the following quantity \[ c_{tr}(K):=\frac{1}{\mathrm{vol}(K)}\max\big\{\mathrm{vol}(\mathrm{conv}(K\cup (K+x))):(K+x)\cap K\neq\emptyset,\;x\in\mathbb{R}^n\big\}, \] where \(K\) is a convex body in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) and \(\mathrm{vol}(\cdot)\) denotes the standard Lebesgue volume in \(\mathbb{R}^n\). The existence of extremizers follows from the affine invariant nature of the functional \(c_{tr}\) together with classical results such as the Blaschke selection theorem and John's theorem. The characterization of maximizers was established by Rogers and Shephard themselves, while the case of minimizers was settled only recently (see [\textit{C. A. Rogers} and \textit{G. C. Shephard}, Mathematika 5, 93--102 (1958; Zbl 0092.15301)] and [\textit{H. Martini} and \textit{Z. Mustafaev}, Period. Math. Hung. 53, No. 1--2, 185--197 (2006; Zbl 1121.52022)], [\textit{Á. G. Horváth} and \textit{Z. Lángi}, Monatsh. Math. 174, No. 2, 219--229 (2014; Zbl 1295.52007)]). The author deals with variants of the Rogers and Shephard problem by replacing the Lebesgue measure by other functionals, closely related to various definitions of volume in normed spaces that have appeared in the literature. Notice that the volume in a normed space (depending on the particular definition) only differs from the standard volume by a multiplicative constant. Given an \(n\)-dimensional normed space with unit ball \(M\), the Busemann volume \(\mathrm{vol}_M^{Bus}(\cdot)\), Holmes-Thompson volume \(\mathrm{vol}_M^{HT}(\cdot)\), Gromov's mass \(\mathrm{vol}_M^m(\cdot)\) and Gromov's mass* \(\mathrm{vol}_M^{m*}(\cdot)\) are defined respectively as follows: \[ \mathrm{vol}_M^{Bus}(K)=\frac{v_n}{\mathrm{vol}(M)}\mathrm{vol}(K),\qquad \mathrm{vol}_M^{HT}(K)=\frac{\mathrm{vol}(M^{\circ})}{v_n}\mathrm{vol}(K), \] \[ \mathrm{vol}_M^{m}(K)=\frac{2^n}{n!C(M)}\mathrm{vol}(K),\qquad \mathrm{vol}_M^{m*}(K)=\frac{2^n}{Q(M)}\mathrm{vol}(K), \] where \(v_n\) is the (Lebesgue) volume of the unit ball in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), \(M^{\circ}\) is the polar body of \(M\), \(C(M)\) is the (Lebesgue) volume of a maximal volume cross-polytope contained in \(M\) and \(Q(M)\) is the (Lebesgue) volume of a minimal volume parallelotope that contains \(M\). Set \(DK\) to be the central symmetral of the convex body \(K\), i.e. \(DK:=(1/2)(K-K)=(1/2)\{x-y:x,y\in K\}\). The author's main result (Theorem 2) is a complete determination of the extreme values (and in most cases characterization of the extremizers), in dimension 2, of the following four functionals: \[ c_{tr}^{\tau}(K):=\max\big\{\mathrm{vol}_{DK}^{\tau}(\mathrm{conv}(K\cup (K+x))):(K+x)\cap K\neq\emptyset,\;x\in\mathbb{R}^n\big\}, \] where \(\tau=Bus,\;HT,\;m,\;m*\). Moreover (Theorem 3), the author obtains similar results under the additional restriction of \(K\) being centrally symmetric. Finally, in the last section of the paper some related open problems are discussed.