Expected extremal area of facets of random polytopes (Q6979128)

Consider the convex hull \(P_N\) of \(N\) independent, uniformly distributed random points on the unit sphere of Euclidean space \({\mathbb R}^n\) (\(n\ge 2\)). The authors are interested in the expected maximal and minimal facet areas of \(P_N\). Denoting by \({\mathcal F}(P_N)\) the set of facets of \(P_N\) and by \({\mathbb E}\) the expectation, they first prove that there are constants \(0<a_n\le b_n\) (depending only on \(n\)) such that for \(N\ge n+1\) one has \N\[\Na_n\frac{\log N}{N} \le {\mathbb E}\max_{F\in{\mathcal F}(P_N)}\mathrm{vol}_{n-1}(F)\le b_n\frac{\log N}{N}.\N\]\NThe upper bound is derived from a stronger result. The proof of the lower bound is more involved. Surprisingly, in contrast to the maximal facet areas, the asymptotic growth of the minimal facet areas depends on the dimension. Write \({\mathbb E} \min_{n,N}:= {\mathbb E}\min_{F\in{\mathcal F}(P_N)}\mathrm{vol}_{n-1}(F)\). It is shown that there are constants \(0< c_n\le C_n\) and \(N_n\) such that the following holds: (a) If \(n=2\) and \(N\ge 3\), then \(3\sqrt{3}N^{-2}\le {\mathbb E}\min_{2,N} \le 2\pi N^{-2}\), (b) If \(n=3\) and \(N\ge N_3\), then \(c_3N^{-8/5}\le {\mathbb E}\min_{3,N}\le C_3N^{-8/5}\), (c) If \(n\ge 4\) and \(N\ge N_n\), then \(c_n N^{-3/2} \le {\mathbb E}\min_{n,N}\le C_nN^{-3/2}\). For \(n\ge 3\), the proof of this second result is rather difficult.