Bourgain's slicing conjecture

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For a convex body K⊂RnK\subset\mathbb{R}^n, define its covariance matrix by

Cov⁡ij(K)=∫Kxixjdx∣K∣−∫Kxidx∣K∣∫Kxjdx∣K∣,\operatorname{Cov}_{ij}(K)=\int_K x_i x_j\frac{dx}{|K|}-\int_K x_i\frac{dx}{|K|}\int_K x_j\frac{dx}{|K|},

and define

C(K)=∣K∣2det⁡Cov⁡(K).\mathcal{C}(K)=\frac{|K|^2}{\det\operatorname{Cov}(K)}.

The isotropic constant LKL_K satisfies C(K)=1/LK2n\mathcal{C}(K)=1/L_K^{2n}.

Bourgain's slicing conjecture. There exists a constant c>0c>0 independent of dimension such that

C(K)≥cn\mathcal{C}(K)\geq c^n

for all n∈Nn\in\mathbb{N} and all convex bodies K⊂RnK\subset\mathbb{R}^n. This is the slicing problem, equivalently a dimension-independent upper bound on the isotropic constant. The source presents it as Bourgain's conjecture and gives no resolution, so it remains open.

References

Primary source

Bo Berndtsson, Vlassis Mastrantonis and Yanir A. Rubinstein, “L^p-polarity, Mahler volumes, and the isotropic constant”, arXiv:2304.14363 (2023).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2018–2023). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1811.00345.

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