Reciprocals and Flowers in Convexity

DOI10.1007/978-3-030-46762-3_9zbMATH Open1460.52007arXiv1812.08709OpenAlexW2905546072MaRDI QIDQ5115968FDOQ5115968

Emanuel Milman, Vitali Milman, Liran Rotem

Publication date: 21 August 2020

Published in: Lecture Notes in Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We study new classes of convex bodies and star bodies with unusual properties. First we define the class of reciprocal bodies, which may be viewed as convex bodies of the form "

1 / K

". The map

K m a p s t o K^{p} r i m e

sending a body to its reciprocal is a duality on the class of reciprocal bodies, and we study its properties. To connect this new map with the classic polarity we use another construction, associating to each convex body

K

a star body which we call its flower and denote by

K^{c} l u b s u i t

. The mapping

K m a p s t o K^{c} l u b s u i t

is a bijection between the class

m a t h c a l K_{0}^{n}

of convex bodies and the class

m a t h c a l F^{n}

of flowers. We show that the polarity map

c i r c : m a t h c a l K_{0}^{n} o m a t h c a l K_{0}^{n}

decomposes into two separate bijections: First our flower map

c l u b s u i t : m a t h c a l K_{0}^{n} o m a t h c a l F^{n}

, followed by the spherical inversion

P h i

which maps

m a t h c a l F^{n}

back to

m a t h c a l K_{0}^{n}

. Each of these maps has its own properties, which combine to create the various properties of the polarity map. We study the various relations between the four maps

p r i m e

,

c i r c

,

c l u b s u i t

and

P h i

and use these relations to derive some of their properties. For example, we show that a convex body

K

is a reciprocal body if and only if its flower

K^{c} l u b s u i t

is convex. We show that the class

m a t h c a l F^{n}

has a very rich structure, and is closed under many operations, including the Minkowski addition. This structure has corollaries for the other maps which we study. For example, we show that if