Fejes Tóth's continuous energy conjecture on the sphere

Let B(Sd)\mathcal B(\mathbb S^d) be the set of Borel probability measures on Sd\mathbb S^d, and for μB(Sd)\mu\in\mathcal B(\mathbb S^d) define

I(μ)=SdSdarccosxydμ(x)dμ(y).I(\mu)=\int_{\mathbb S^d}\int_{\mathbb S^d}\arccos\lvert x\cdot y\rvert\,d\mu(x)d\mu(y).

Let

νONB=1d+1i=1d+1ei.\nu_{ONB}=\frac{1}{d+1}\sum_{i=1}^{d+1}e_i.

Fejes Tóth's continuous energy conjecture. The energy integral is maximized by νONB\nu_{ONB}:

maxμB(Sd)I(μ)=I(νONB)=π2dd+1.\max_{\mu\in\mathcal B(\mathbb S^d)}I(\mu)=I(\nu_{ONB})=\frac{\pi}{2}\cdot\frac{d}{d+1}.

This is the continuous analogue of the discrete conjecture. The supplied status evidence says that only the case d=1d=1 of the discrete conjecture has been settled; no resolution of this continuous assertion is given, so it remains open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Dmitriy Bilyk and Ryan W Matzke, “On the Fejes Tóth Problem about the Sum of Angles Between Lines”, arXiv:1801.07837 (2018).

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