Uniqueness of the 120-point spherical 11-design in four dimensions (Q5956003)

A spherical \((n,M,s)\)-code is a finite subset \(C\) of the \(n\)-dimensional Euclidean sphere \({\mathbf S}^{n-1}\) with cardinality \(|C|= M\) and a maximal inner product \(s= \max\{(x,y)\mid x,y\in C, x\neq y\}\). A spherical code \(C\subset{\mathbf S}^{n-1}\) is called a spherical \(\tau\)-design if and only if the equality \[ \int_{{\mathbf S}^{n-1}} f(x) d\mu(x)= {1\over|C|} \sum_{x\in C} f(x) \] holds for all polynomials \(f(x)= f(x_1,x_2,\dots, x_n)\) of degree at most \(\tau\) (\(\mu\) is the Lebesgue measure and \(\mu({\mathbf S}^{n-1})= 1\)). A spherical \(\tau\)-design is said to have index \(i\) if the above equation holds for every homogeneous polynomial of degree \(i\). The spherical designs were introduced in 1977 by \textit{P. Desarte}, \textit{J. M. Goethals} and \textit{J. J. Seidel} [Geometriae Dedicata 6, 363-388 (1977; Zbl 0376.05015)]. They also introduced the concept of an \((n,M,d,\tau)\) (spherical) configuration. This is a spherical code \(C\subset{\mathbf S}^{n-1}\) of cardinality \(M\), which is a \(d\)-distance set and a \(\tau\)-design. In this paper the authors prove that, up to isometry, there exist a unique 120-point spherical 11-design on \({\mathbf S}^3\) and a unique maximal spherical \((4,120,\cos(\pi/5))\)-code. (Observe that \(\cos(\pi/5)= (1+ \sqrt 5)/4\).) Moreover, these two objects coincide with nothing but the regular polytope with the Schläfli symbols \(\{3,3,5\}\) \([10,22]\) (also widely known as 600-cell).