The Hankel index of a real variety X is an invariant that quantifies the difference between nonnegative quadrics and sums of squares on X. In [5], the authors proved an intriguing bound on the Hankel index in terms of the Green–Lazarsfeld index, which measures the ‘linearity’ of the minimal free resolution of the ideal of X. In all previously known cases, this bound was tight. We provide the first class of examples where the bound is not tight; in fact, the difference between Hankel index and Green–Lazarsfeld index can be arbitrarily large. Our examples are outer projections of rational normal curves, where we identify the center of projection with a binary form F. The Green–Lazarsfeld index of the projected curve is given by the complex Waring border rank of F [16]. We show that the Hankel index is given by the almost real rank of F, which is a new notion that comes from decomposing F as a sum of powers of almost real forms. Finally, we determine the range of possible and typical almost real ranks for binary forms.

In 1993, E. Lutwak established a minimax inequality for inscribed cones of origin symmetric convex bodies. In this work, we re-prove Lutwak’s result using a maxmin inequality for circumscribed cylinders. Furthermore, we explore connections between the maximum volume of inscribed double cones of a centered convex body and the minimum volume of circumscribed cylinders of its polar body.

Magnitude is a numerical invariant of compact metric spaces, originally inspired by category theory and now known to be related to myriad other geometric quantities. Generalizing earlier results in $\ell _1^n$ and Euclidean space, we prove an upper bound for the magnitude of a convex body in a hypermetric normed space in terms of its Holmes–Thompson intrinsic volumes. As applications of this bound, we give short new proofs of Mahler’s conjecture in the case of a zonoid and Sudakov’s minoration inequality.

We investigate the weighted $L_p$ affine surface areas which appear in the recently established $L_p$ Steiner formula of the $L_p$ Brunn–Minkowski theory. We show that they are valuations on the set of convex bodies and prove isoperimetric inequalities for them. We show that they are related to f divergences of the cone measures of the convex body and its polar, namely the Kullback–Leibler divergence and the Rényi divergence.

First, we build a computational procedure to reconstruct the convex body from a pre-given surface area measure. Nontrivially, we prove the convergence of this procedure. Then, the sufficient and necessary conditions of a Sobolev binary function to be a lightness function of a convex body are investigated. Finally, we present a computational procedure to compute the curvature function from a pre-given lightness function, and then we reconstruct the convex body from this curvature function by using the first procedure. The convergence is also proved. The main computations in both procedures are simply about the spherical harmonics.

Bezdek and Kiss showed that existence of origin-symmetric coverings of unit sphere in ${\mathbb {E}}^n$ by at most $2^n$ congruent spherical caps with radius not exceeding $\arccos \sqrt {\frac {n-1}{2n}}$ implies the X-ray conjecture and the illumination conjecture for convex bodies of constant width in ${\mathbb {E}}^n$ , and constructed such coverings for $4\le n\le 6$ . Here, we give such constructions with fewer than $2^n$ caps for $5\le n\le 15$ .

For the illumination number of any convex body of constant width in ${\mathbb {E}}^n$ , Schramm proved an upper estimate with exponential growth of order $(3/2)^{n/2}$ . In particular, that estimate is less than $3\cdot 2^{n-2}$ for $n\ge 16$ , confirming the abovementioned conjectures for the class of convex bodies of constant width. Thus, our result settles the outstanding cases $7\le n\le 15$ .

We also show how to calculate the covering radius of a given discrete point set on the sphere efficiently on a computer.

We shall prove a convergence result relative to sequences of Minkowski symmetrals of general compact sets. In particular, we investigate the case when this process is induced by sequences of subspaces whose elements belong to a finite family, following the path marked by Klain in Klain (2012, Advances in Applied Mathematics 48, 340–353), and the generalizations in Bianchi et al. (2019, Convergence of symmetrization processes, preprint) and Bianchi et al. (2012, Indiana University Mathematics Journal 61, 1695–1710). We prove an analogous result for fiber symmetrization of a specific class of compact sets. The idempotency for symmetrizations of this family of sets is investigated, leading to a simple generalization of a result from Klartag (2004, Geometric and Functional Analysis 14, 1322–1338) regarding the approximation of a ball through a finite number of symmetrizations, and generalizing an approximation result in Fradelizi, Làngi and Zvavitch (2020, Volume of the Minkowski sums of star-shaped sets, preprint).

In response to an open problem raised by S. Rabinowitz, we prove that

$$ \begin{align*} \begin{array} [c]{l} \left( \left( x^{2}+y^{2}\right) {}^{2}+8y\left( y^{2}-3x^{2}\right) \right) {}^{2}+432y\left( y^{2}-3x^{2}\right) \left( 351-10\left( x^{2}+y^{2}\right) \right) \\ =567^{3}+28\left( x^{2}+y^{2}\right) {}^{3}+486\left( x^{2}+y^{2}\right) \left( 67\left( x^{2}+y^{2}\right) -567\times18\right) \end{array} \end{align*} $$

For a smooth strongly convex Minkowski norm $F:\mathbb {R}^n \to \mathbb {R}_{\geq 0}$ , we study isometries of the Hessian metric corresponding to the function $E=\tfrac 12F^2$ . Under the additional assumption that F is invariant with respect to the standard action of $SO(k)\times SO(n-k)$ , we prove a conjecture of Laugwitz stated in 1965. Furthermore, we describe all isometries between such Hessian metrics, and prove Landsberg Unicorn Conjecture for Finsler manifolds of dimension $n\ge 3$ such that at every point the corresponding Minkowski norm has a linear $SO(k)\times SO(n-k)$ -symmetry.

This paper studies a new Whitney type inequality on a compact domain $\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d$ that takes the form

$$ \begin{align*} \inf_{Q\in \Pi_{r-1}^d(\mathcal{E})} \|f-Q\|_p \leq C(p,r,\Omega) \omega_{\mathcal{E}}^r(f,\mathrm{diam}(\Omega))_p,\ \ r\in {\mathbb N},\ \ 0<p\leq \infty, \end{align*} $$

$\omega _{\mathcal {E}}^r(f, t)_p$

$f\in L^p(\Omega )$

$\mathcal {E}\subset \mathbb {S}^{d-1}$

$\mathrm {span}(\mathcal {E})={\mathbb R}^d$

$\Pi _{r-1}^d(\mathcal {E}):=\{g\in C(\Omega ):\ \omega ^r_{\mathcal {E}} (g, \mathrm {diam} (\Omega ))_p=0\}$

$\mathcal {E}$

$\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d$

$C^2$

$\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d$

$\mathcal {E}$

$\mathcal {N}_d(\Omega )\in {\mathbb N}$

$\mathcal {N}_d(\Omega )$

$\mathcal {E}$

$\mathrm {span}(\mathcal {E})={\mathbb R}^d$

$\Omega $

$r\in {\mathbb N}$

$p>0$

$\mathcal {N}_d(\Omega )=d$

$C^2$

$\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d$

$d=2$

$\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^2$

$d\ge 3$

$\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d$

$d\ge 3$

$\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d$

$\mathcal {N}_d(\Omega )$

$\Omega $

$\Omega $

$\mathcal {E}\subset \mathbb {S}^{d-1}$

$\mathcal {E}$

$\Omega $

$r\in {\mathbb N}$

$0<p\leq \infty $

$\mathcal {N}_d(\Omega )$

$d\ge 3$

A slight modification of the proof of the usual Whitney inequality in literature also yields a directional Whitney inequality on each convex body $\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d$ , but with the set $\mathcal {E}$ containing more than $(c d)^{d-1}$ directions. In this paper, we develop a new and simpler method to prove the directional Whitney inequality on more general, possibly nonconvex domains requiring significantly fewer directions in the directional moduli.

A. R. Martínez Fernández obtained upper bounds for quermassintegrals of the p-inner parallel bodies: an extension of the classical inner parallel body to the $L_p$ -Brunn-Minkowski theory. In this paper, we establish (sharp) upper and lower bounds for quermassintegrals of p-inner parallel bodies. Moreover, the sufficient and necessary conditions of the equality case for the main inequality are obtained, which characterize the so-called tangential bodies.

In the present paper, we first introduce the concepts of the Lpq-capacity measure and Lp mixed q-capacity and then prove some geometric properties of Lpq-capacity measure and a Lp Minkowski inequality for the q-capacity for any fixed p ⩾ 1 and q > n. As an application of the Lp Minkowski inequality mentioned above, we establish a Hadamard variational formula for the q-capacity under p-sum for any fixed p ⩾ 1 and q > n, which extends results of Akman et al. (Adv. Calc. Var. (in press)). With the Hadamard variational formula, variational method and Lp Minkowski inequality mentioned above, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution for the Lp Minkowski problem for the q-capacity which extends some beautiful results of Jerison (1996, Acta Math.176, 1–47), Colesanti et al. (2015, Adv. Math.285, 1511–588), Akman et al. (Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. (in press)) and Akman et al. (Adv. Calc. Var. (in press)). It is worth mentioning that our proof of Hadamard variational formula is based on Lp Minkowski inequality rather than the direct argument which was adopted by Akman (Adv. Calc. Var. (in press)). Moreover, as a consequence of Lp Minkowski inequality for q-capacity, we get an interesting isoperimetric inequality for q-capacity.

The Gaussian polytope $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ is the convex hull of n independent standard normally distributed points in $\mathbb{R}^d$ . We derive explicit expressions for the probability that $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ contains a fixed point $x\in\mathbb{R}^d$ as a function of the Euclidean norm of x, and the probability that $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ contains the point $\sigma X$ , where $\sigma\geq 0$ is constant and X is a standard normal vector independent of $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ . As a by-product, we also compute the expected number of k-faces and the expected volume of $\mathcal P_{n,d}$ , thus recovering the results of Affentranger and Schneider (Discr. and Comput. Geometry, 1992) and Efron (Biometrika, 1965), respectively. All formulas are in terms of the volumes of regular spherical simplices, which, in turn, can be expressed through the standard normal distribution function $\Phi(z)$ and its complex version $\Phi(iz)$ . The main tool used in the proofs is the conic version of the Crofton formula.

All SL($n$) contravariant symmetric matrix valued valuations on convex polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ are completely classified without any continuity assumptions. The general Lutwak–Yang–Zhang matrix is shown to be essentially the unique such valuation.

All non-negative, continuous, $\text{SL}(n)$, and translation invariant valuations on the space of super-coercive, convex functions on $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ are classified. Furthermore, using the invariance of the function space under the Legendre transform, a classification of non-negative, continuous, $\text{SL}(n)$, and dually translation invariant valuations is obtained. In both cases, different functional analogs of the Euler characteristic, volume, and polar volume are characterized.

Using previous results about shadow systems and Steiner symmetrization, we prove that the local maximizers of the volume product of convex bodies are actually the global maximizers, that is: ellipsoids.

The study of high-dimensional distributions is of interest in probability theory, statistics, and asymptotic convex geometry, where the object of interest is the uniform distribution on a convex set in high dimensions. The ℓp-spaces and norms are of particular interest in this setting. In this paper we establish a limit theorem for distributions on ℓp-spheres, conditioned on a rare event, in a high-dimensional geometric setting. As part of our proof, we establish a certain large deviation principle that is also relevant to the study of the tail behavior of random projections of ℓp-balls in a high-dimensional Euclidean space.

We provide general inequalities that compare the surface area $S(K)$ of a convex body $K$ in ${{\mathbb{R}}^{n}}$ to the minimal, average, or maximal surface area of its hyperplane or lower dimensional projections. We discuss the same questions for all the quermassintegrals of $K$. We examine separately the dependence of the constants on the dimension in the case where $K$ is in some of the classical positions or $K$ is a projection body. Our results are in the spirit of the hyperplane problem, with sections replaced by projections and volume by surface area.

Employing the inverse function theorem on Banach spaces, we prove that in a $C^{2}(S^{n-1})$-neighborhood of the unit ball, the only solutions of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}^{2}K=cK$ are origin-centered ellipsoids. Here $K$ is an $n$-dimensional convex body, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}K$ is the projection body of $K$ and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}^{2}K=\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}K).$

For a non-empty polyhedral set $P\subset \mathbb{R}^{d}$, let ${\mathcal{F}}(P)$ denote the set of faces of $P$, and let $N(P,F)$ be the normal cone of $P$ at the non-empty face $F\in {\mathcal{F}}(P)$. We prove the identity

$$\begin{eqnarray}\mathop{\sum }_{F\in {\mathcal{F}}(P)}(-1)^{\operatorname{dim}F}\unicode[STIX]{x1D7D9}_{F-N(P,F)}=\left\{\begin{array}{@{}ll@{}}1\quad & \text{if }P\text{ is bounded},\\ 0\quad & \text{if }P\text{ is unbounded and line-free}.\end{array}\right.\end{eqnarray}$$

$0$