On the Aleksandrov-Fenchel inequality for convex bodies. I (Q917921)

Let \(C_ i\), \(C_ i'\) \((i=1,2,...,n-2)\) be n-dimensional convex bodies in \(E^ n\). One says that \(C_ i'\) is adapted to \(C_ i\) if to each point \(x\in \partial C_ i\) there is a point \(x'\in \partial C_ i'\) such that \(N(C,x)\subset N(C',x')\) where N(C,x) consists of all outer normal vectors to C at x. The author proves that if K, L are convex bodies in \(E^ n\) which satisfy the equality \(V(K,L,C_ 1,...,C_{n- 2})^ 2=V(K,K,C_ 1,...,C_{n-2})V(L,L,C_ 1,...,C_{n-2})\) then also \(V(K,L,C_ 1',...,C'_{n-2})^ 2=V(K,K,C_ 1',...,C'_{n- 2})V(L,L,C_ 1',...,C'_{n-2})\), where V denotes mixed volumes. The theorem lends strong support to a noteworthy conjecture of the author [Discrete geometry and convexity, Proc. Conf., New York 1982, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 440, 132-141 (1985; Zbl 0567.52004)]. As a consequence, if \(C_ i\) are smooth convex bodies and the first equality above holds, then K, L are homothetic.