Covering belt bodies by smaller homothetical copies (Q5948410)

Remember that \textit{V. Boltyanskiĭ} [Mat. Zametki 58, No. 4, 505-511 (1995); translation in Math. Notes 58, No. 3-4, 1029-1032 (1995; Zbl 0856.52014)] proved that every \(n\)-dimensional belt body distinct from a parallelotope can be covered by \(3\cdot 2^{n-2}\) of its smaller homothetical copies. The present paper shows for which belt bodies this number cannot be lessened. It is also proved that each from the remaining belt bodies can be covered by at most \(\frac 52\cdot 2^{n-2}\) smaller homothetical copies. The considerations are based on a few lemmas about indecomposability of zonotopes and about approximation of belt bodies by zonotopes.