Covering large balls with convex sets in spherical space (Q846766)

The authors prove that if the spherically convex bodies \(K_1,\dots, K_m\) cover the spherical ball of radius \(r(B)\geq{\pi\over 2}\) (a large ball) in the unit sphere \(\mathbb{S}^n\), then \[ \sum^m_{i=1} r(K_i)\geq r(B), \] where \(r(K_i)\) denotes the inradius of \(K_i\). Hence if \(\mathbb{S}^n\) is covered by finitely many spherically convex bodies, the sum of their inradii is at least \(\pi\). This is an analogue of Tarski's plank problem in \(\mathbb{R}^n\). Maximal convex bodies with given inradii are planks in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), and lenses in \(\mathbb{S}^n\). If \(r(B)={\pi\over 2}\) or \(\pi\), equality holds if and only if \(K_1,\dots, K_m\) are lenses with common ridge and pairwise disjoint interiors. The result follows from the authors' Theorem 2. If \(K\) is a spherically convex body, then \[ \sigma(K)\leq{\sigma_n\over \pi} r(K), \] where \(\sigma\) denotes the spherical Lebesgue measure on \(\mathbb{S}^n\), and \(\sigma_n= \sigma(\mathbb{S}^n)\).