Five-point triangular bipyramid or square-pyramid energy conjecture

Let S2S^2 be the unit sphere, and let a completely monotonic potential function be a potential function whose derivatives alternate in sign on the relevant domain. For five points on S2S^2, consider the energy obtained by summing the potential over all pairwise distances. Five-point energy conjecture. For each completely monotonic potential function, either the triangular bipyramid or a square pyramid minimizes energy for 55 points in S2S^2. This concerns the first number of points for which universal optimality fails; the triangular bipyramid is an equilibrium for every potential, while the optimal square-pyramid latitude may depend on the potential function.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Henry Cohn, “Packing, coding, and ground states”, arXiv:1603.05202 (2016).

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