Local properties of intertwining operators on the sphere (Q544007)

The starting point of this paper is the problem of Wilhelm Blaschke asking whether zonoids in \({\mathbb R}^d\) (\(d\geq 3\)) can be characterized locally. \textit{W. Weil} [Arch. Math. 29, 655--659 (1977; Zbl 0382.52006)] gave a negative answer and asked whether an equatorial characterization (i.e., involving arbitrarily small neighborhoods of equators on the spherical image) is possible instead. An affirmative answer in even dimensions \(d\) was given by \textit{G. Yu. Panina} [Sov. J. Contemp. Math. Anal., Arm. Acad. Sci. 23, No.~4, 91--103 (1988); translation from Izv. Akad. Nauk Arm. SSR, Mat. 23, No. 4, 385--395 (1988; Zbl 0663.52001)], and a negative one in odd dimensions by \textit{F. Nazarov, D. Ryabogin} and \textit{A. Zvavitch} [Adv. Math. 217, No.~3, 1368--1380 (2008; Zbl 1151.52002)]. The latter authors also obtained corresponding results for intersection bodies. In the present paper, the cosine transform and the spherical Radon transform underlying these results are generalized to any linear, continuous and bijective operator \(T\) on the Banach space \(C^\infty(S^{d-1})\) of \(C^\infty\) functions on the unit sphere \(S^{d-1}\) that intertwines the rotations. For applications, also operators on distributions, continuous functions, and centrally symmetric functions have to be considered. The authors make a general study of local support, local positivity and corresponding equatorial properties of such operators, which not only explain the mentioned results from a higher and unifying standpoint, but also lead to a number of new results of a similar nature. For example, for the mean section bodies that the authors have introduced and investigated earlier, they show that in even dimensions there is a local characterization, but not in odd dimensions. Further applications are made to \(L_q\)-centroid bodies and Koldobsky's \(k\)-intersection bodies.