Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 December 2005
The paper considers three questions about independent random points uniformly distributed in isotropic symmetric convex bodies $K, T_1,\ldots, T_s$. (a) Let $\varepsilon\,{\in}\, (0,1)$ and let $x_1,\ldots, x_N$ be chosen from K. Is it true that if $N\,{\geq}\, C(\varepsilon )n\log n$, then \[\left\| I-\frac{1}{NL_K^2}\sum_{i=1}^Nx_i\otimes x_i\right\|<\varepsilon\] with probability greater than $1\,{-}\,\varepsilon $? (b) Let $x_i$ be chosen from $T_i$. Is it true that the unconditional norm \[\|{\bf t}\|=\int_{T_1}\!{\ldots}\int_{T_s}\left\|\sum_{i=1}^st_ix_i\right\|_K\,dx_s\ldots dx_1\] is well comparable to the Euclidean norm in ${\mathbb R}^s$? (c) Let $x_1,\ldots, x_N$ be chosen from K. Let ${\mathbb E}\,(K,N):={\mathbb E}\,|{\rm conv}\{ x_1,\ldots, x_N\}|^{1/n}$ be the expected volume radius of their convex hull. Is it true that ${\mathbb E}\,(K,N)\,{\simeq}\, {\mathbb E}\,(B(n),N)$ for all N, where $B(n)$ is the Euclidean ball of volume 1?
It is proved that the answers to these questions are affirmative if there is a restriction to the class of unconditional convex bodies. The main tools come from recent work of Bobkov and Nazarov. Some observations about the general case are also included.