It is proved that every convex body in the plane has a point such that the union of the body and its image under reflection in the point is convex. If the body is not centrally symmetric, then it has, in fact, three affinely independent points with this property.
In this paper we study the bisections of a centrally symmetric planar convex body which minimize the maximum relative diameter functional. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for being a minimizing bisection, as well as analyzing the behavior of the so-called standard bisection.
Upper estimates of the diameter and the radius of the family of all planar convex bodies with respect to the Banach-Mazur distance are obtained. Namely, it is shown that the diameter does not exceed $\tfrac{19-\sqrt{73}}4\approx 2.614$, which improves the previously known bound of $3$, and that the radius does not exceed $\frac{117}{70}\approx 1.671$.
The purpose of this paper is to study the reflections of a convex body. In particular, we are interested in orthogonal reflections of its sections that can be extended to reflections of the whole body. For this reason, we need to study the case of a non-spherical ellipsoid, where a surprising structure arises (Section 2). These results allow us to give a new characterization of ellipsoids in terms of their reflections and, on the other hand, to prove a result deeply related to a conjecture due to K. Bezdek.
In this work we study the maximum relative diameter functional $d_M$ in the class of multi-rotationally symmetric planar convex bodies. A given set $C$ of this class is $k$-rotationally symmetric for $k\in\{k_1,\ldots,k_n\}\subset\nn$, and so it is natural to consider the standard $k_i$-partition $P_{k_i}$ associated to $C$ (which is a minimizing $k_i$-partition for $d_M$ when $k_i\geq3$) and the corresponding value $d_M(P_{k_i})$. We establish the relation among these values, characterizing the particular sets for which all these values coincide.
In this work we study subdivisions of $k$-rotationally symmetric planar convex bodies that minimize the maximum relative diameter functional. For some particular subdivisions called $k$-partitions, consisting of $k$ curves meeting in an interior vertex, we prove that the so-called \emph{standard $k$-partition} (given by $k$ equiangular inradius segments) is minimizing for any $k\in\mathbb{N}$, $k\geq 3$. For general subdivisions, we show that the previous result only holds for $k\leq 6$. We also study the optimal set for this problem, obtaining that for each $k\in\mathbb{N}$, $k\geq 3$, it con…
We extend the classical LR characterization of chirotopes of finite planar families of points to chirotopes of finite planar families of pairwise disjoint convex bodies: a map \c{hi} on the set of 3-subsets of a finite set I is a chirotope of finite planar families of pairwise disjoint convex bodies if and only if for every 3-, 4-, and 5-subset J of I the restriction of \c{hi} to the set of 3-subsets of J is a chirotope of finite planar families of pairwise disjoint convex bodies. Our main tool is the polarity map, i.e., the map that assigns to a convex body the set of lines missing its interi…
The {\em minimal unfolded region} (or the {\em heart}) of a bounded subset $\Om$ in the Euclidean space is a subset of the convex hull of $\Om$ the definition of which is based on reflections in hyperplanes. It was introduced to restrict the location of the points that give extreme values of certain functions, such as potentials whose kernels are monotone functions of the distance, and solutions of differential equations to which Aleksandrov's reflection principle can be applied. %the temperature of a heat conductor with some initial-boundary condition, in which case the points are called the …
Given any polar pair of convex bodies we study its conjugate face maps and we characterize conjugate faces of non-exposed faces in terms of normal cones. The analysis is carried out using the positive hull operator which defines lattice isomorphisms linking three Galois connections. One of them assigns conjugate faces between the convex bodies. The second and third Galois connection is defined between the touching cones and the faces of each convex body separately. While the former is well-known, we introduce the latter in this article for any convex set in any finite dimension. We demonstrate…
We study upper bounds on the number of lattice points for convex bodies having their centroid at the origin. For the family of simplices as well as in the planar case we obtain best possible results. For arbitrary convex bodies we provide an upper bound, which extends the centrally symmetric case and which, in particular, shows that the centroid assumption is indeed much more restrictive than an assumption on the number of interior lattice points even for the class of lattice polytopes.
The semigroup of convex bodies in ${\mathbb R}^n$ with Minkowski addition has a canonical embedding into an abelian group; its elements have been called virtual convex bodies. Geometric interpretations of such virtual convex bodies have been particularly fruitful under the restriction to polytopes. For general convex bodies, mainly the planar case has been studied, as a part of the more general investigation of hedgehogs. Here we restrict ourselves to strictly convex bodies in ${\mathbb R}^n$. A particularly natural geometric interpretation of virtual convex bodies can then be seen in the set …
Let $K \subset {\mathbb R}^2$ be an $o$-symmetric convex body, and $K^*$ its polar body. Then we have $|K|\cdot |K^*| \ge 8$, with equality if and only if $K$ is a parallelogram. ($| \cdot |$ denotes volume). If $K \subset {\mathbb R}^2$ is a convex body, with $o \in {\text{int}}\,K$, then $|K|\cdot |K^*| \ge 27/4$, with equality if and only if $K$ is a triangle and $o$ is its centroid. If $K \subset {\mathbb R}^2$ is a convex body, then we have $|K| \cdot |[(K-K)/2)]^* | \ge 6$, with equality if and only if $K$ is a triangle. These theorems are due to Mahler and Reisner, Mahler and Meyer, and…
We show that for any Minkowski centered planar convex compact set $C$ the Harmonic mean of $C$ and $-C$ can be optimally contained in the arithmetic mean of the same sets if and only if the Minkowski asymmetry of $C$ is at most the golden ratio $(1+\sqrt{5})/2 \approx 1.618$. Moreover, the most asymmetric such set that is (up to a linear transformation) a special pentagon, which we call the golden house.
The covariogram g_K(x) of a convex body K \subseteq E^d is the function which associates to each x \in E^d the volume of the intersection of K with K+x. Matheron asked whether g_K determines K, up to translations and reflections in a point. Positive answers to Matheron's question have been obtained for large classes of planar convex bodies, while for d\geq 3 there are both positive and negative results. One of the purposes of this paper is to sharpen some of the known results on Matheron's conjecture indicating how much of the covariogram information is needed to get the uniqueness of determin…
This work is related to billiards and their applications in geometric optics. It is known that perfectly invisible bodies with mirror surface do not exist. It is natural to search for bodies that are, in a sense, close to invisible. We introduce a {\it visibility index} of a body measuring the mean angle of deviation of incident light rays, and derive a lower estimate to this index. This estimate is a function of the body's volume and of the minimal radius of a ball containing the body. This result is far from being final and opens a possibility for further research.
We prove that if two convex bodies $ K, L \subset \mathbb{R}^3$ satisfy the property that the orthogonal projections of $K$ and $L$ onto every plane containing the origin are roations of each other, then either $K$ and $L$ coincide or $L$ is the image of $K$ under a reflection about the origin
A finite subset $K$ of $\mathbb{Z}^d$ is said to be lattice-convex if $K$ is the intersection of $\mathbb{Z}^d$ with a convex set. The covariogram $g_K$ of $K\subseteq \mathbb{Z}^d$ is the function associating to each $u \in \integer^d$ the cardinality of $K\cap (K+u)$. Daurat, Gérard, and Nivat and independently Gardner, Gronchi, and Zong raised the problem on the reconstruction of lattice-convex sets $K$ from $g_K$. We provide a partial positive answer to this problem by showing that for $d=2$ and under mild extra assumptions, $g_K$ determines $K$ up to translations and reflections. As a com…
A generalization of pairwise intersecting Minkowski arrangement of centrally symmetric convex bodies is the pairwise intersecting Minkowski arrangement of order $μ$. Here, the homothetic copies of a centrally symmetric convex body are so that none of their interiors intersect the $μ$-kernel of any other. We give general upper and lower bounds on the cardinality of such arrangements, and study two special cases: For $d$-dimensional translates in classical pairwise intersecting Minkowski arrangement we prove that the sharp upper bound is $3^d$. For $μ=1$ the general version yields to another kno…
A translation body of a convex body is the convex hull of two of its translates intersecting each other. In the 1950s, Rogers and Shephard found the extremal values, over the family of $n$-dimensional convex bodies, of the maximal volume of the translation bodies of a given convex body. In our paper, we introduce a normed version of this problem, and for the planar case, determine the corresponding quantities, with one exception, for the four types of volumes regularly used in the literature: Busemann, Holmes-Thompson, and Gromov's mass and mass*. We examine the problem also for higher dimensi…
A pizza is a pair of planar convex bodies $A\subseteq B$,where $B$ represents the dough and $A$ the topping of the pizza. A partition of a pizza by straight lines is a succession of double operations:a cut by a full straight line, followed by a Euclidean move of one of theresulting pieces; then the procedure is repeated.The final partition is said to be fair if each resulting slice has the same amount of $A$ and the same amount of $B$.This note proves that, given an integer $n\geq2$, there exists a fair partition by straight lines of any pizza $(A,B)$ into $n$ parts if and onlyif $n$ is even.T…
We present a complete 3-dimensional Blaschke-Santaló diagram for planar convex bodies with respect to the four classical magnitudes inner and outer radius, diameter and (minimal) width in euclidean spaces.
In 1969, Vic Klee asked whether a convex body is uniquely determined (up to translation and reflection in the origin) by its inner section function, the function giving for each direction the maximal area of sections of the body by hyperplanes orthogonal to that direction. We answer this question in the negative by constructing two infinitely smooth convex bodies of revolution about the $x_n$-axis in $\R^n$, $n\ge 3$, one origin symmetric and the other not centrally symmetric, with the same inner section function. Moreover, the pair of bodies can be arbitrarily close to the unit ball.
In the paper we investigate the continuity properties of the mapping $Φ$ which sends any non-empty compact connected hv-convex planar set $K$ to the associated generalized conic function $f_K$. The function $f_K$ measures the average taxicab distance of the points in the plane from the focal set $K$ by integration. The main area of the applications is the geometric tomography because $f_K$ involves the coordinate X-rays' information as second order partial derivatives \cite{NV3}. We prove that the Hausdorff-convergence implies the convergence of the conic functions with respect to both the sup…
The Andreev-Thurston Circle Packing Theorem is generalized to packings of convex bodies in planar simply connected domains. This turns out to be a useful tool for constructing conformal and quasiconformal mappings with interesting geometric properties. We attempt to illustrate this with a few results about uniformizations of finitely connected planar domains. For example, the following variation of a theorem by Courant, Manel and Shiffman is proved and generalized. If $G$ is an $n+1$-connected bounded planar domain, $H$ is a simply connected bounded planar domain, and $P_1,P_2,...,P_n$ are (co…
We propose strongly consistent algorithms for reconstructing the characteristic function 1_K of an unknown convex body K in R^n from possibly noisy measurements of the modulus of its Fourier transform \hat{1_K}. This represents a complete theoretical solution to the Phase Retrieval Problem for characteristic functions of convex bodies. The approach is via the closely related problem of reconstructing K from noisy measurements of its covariogram, the function giving the volume of the intersection of K with its translates. In the many known situations in which the covariogram determines a convex…
We consider moments of the normalized volume of a symmetric or nonsymmetric random polytope in a fixed symmetric convex body. We investigate for which bodies these moments are extremized, and calculate exact values in some of the extreme cases. We show that these moments are maximized among planar convex bodies by parallelograms.
The covariogram g_K of a convex body K in E^d is the function which associates to each x in E^d the volume of the intersection of K with K+x. In 1986 G. Matheron conjectured that for d=2 the covariogram g_K determines K within the class of all planar convex bodies, up to translations and reflections in a point. This problem is equivalent to some problems in stochastic geometry and probability as well as to a particular case of the phase retrieval problem in Fourier analysis. It is also relevant for the inverse problem of determining the atomic structure of a quasicrystal from its X-ray diffrac…