The extremal-distance characterization of regular polygons

Let A1,A2,,AnA_1,A_2,\ldots,A_n be different points in the plane and let Γ\Gamma be a circle. Suppose that

i=1nPAi2n2\sum_{i=1}^n |PA_i|^{2n-2}

is constant for PΓP\in\Gamma.

Regular polygon conjecture. Then A1,A2,,AnA_1,A_2,\ldots,A_n are the vertices of a regular polygon inscribed in a circle concentric to Γ\Gamma.

The preceding theorem proves the analogous assertion when the sums for all exponents 2,4,,2n22,4,\ldots,2n-2 are constant; the conjecture asks whether the single highest even exponent already suffices.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Nikolai Nikolov and Rafael Rafailov, “On extremums of sums of powered distances to a finite set of points”, arXiv:1211.2975 (2012).

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