A note on the metric geometry of the unit ball (Q636776)

By \(B^{n}\) is denoted the unit ball in the Euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\). The quantity \(M(B^{n})=\sup\int_{B^{n}}\int_{B^{n}} \|x-y\|d\mu(x)d\mu(y)\) is considered, where the supremum is taken over all finite signed Borel measures \(\mu\) on \(B^{n}\) of total mass 1. In this work the value \(M(B^{n})\) is computed explicitly. More precisely the main theorem states that \[ M(B^{n})=\pi^{\frac{1}{2}}\;\frac{\Gamma(\frac{1}{2}(n+1))}{\Gamma(\frac{1}{2}n)}, \] where \(\Gamma\) is Euler's gamma function, and it is shown that for any \(n>1\) no measure exists that achieves the supremum defining \(M(B^{n}).\) These results generalize the work of \textit{R. Alexander} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 64, 317--320 (1977; Zbl 0409.52006)] on \(M(B^{3}).\)