Abstract
Concerning the antipodality properties of finite sets, we focus on convex polytopes in with less than vertices and characterize convex polytopes with 5 vertices that are pairwise antipodal.
Keywords:
Boltyanski’s illumination conjecture; convex polytope; antipodal points; Hadwiger’s conjecture MSC:
52A15
1. Introduction
Let A be a subset of and . If there are distinct parallel hyperplanes and passing through a and b, respectively, such that A lies on the slab between and , then a and b are said to be (affinely) antipodal. A classical result in Convex and Discrete Geometry states that the maximum cardinality of a subset A of , whose points are pairwise antipodal, is , and that a subset A of consisting of points that are pairwise antipodal is the set of vertices of an n-dimensional parallelotope; see [1,2]. It is clear that the vertices of an n-dimensional parallelotope in are pairwise antipodal. Thus, the result mentioned above provides a characterization of n-dimensional convex polytopes with vertices that are pairwise antipodal. Since an n-dimensional convex polytope has at least vertices, it is natural to ask for characterizations of n-dimensional convex polytopes with m () vertices that are pairwise antipodal. We refer to [3,4,5] for estimations of the cardinality of antipodal pairs of points in a finite subset in .
Note that antipodality has many applications in Convex and Discrete Geometry. For example, this notion is closely related to the study of Hadwiger’s covering conjecture, a long-standing open problem in Convex and Discrete Geometry.
Let K be a convex compact set whose affine dimension is at least 1. The closure, interior, relative interior, boundary, and relative boundary of K are denoted by , , , , and , respectively. Let and be a direction (i.e., a nonzero vector). The point x is said to be illuminated by u if there exists a positive number such that
If each point of can be illuminated by at least one of the directions , then we say that is illuminated by .
Hadwiger’s covering conjecture asserts that each n-dimensional convex body (compact convex set whose affine dimension is n) that is not affinely equivalent to can be illuminated by at most directions. While the case for has been fully resolved (cf. [6]), this conjecture remains open for . For a deeper dive into this fascinating conjecture, we recommend the monographs cited in [7,8] and the survey articles in [9,10,11,12].
It is clear that two points in the boundary of a convex body K are antipodal if and only if they cannot be illuminated by the same direction (cf. Lemma 1 below). Therefore, the least number of directions needed to illuminate is not less than the maximum number of points in that are pairwise antipodal. Moreover, it is not difficult to verify that each n-dimensional convex polytope having at most vertices can be illuminated by at most directions, and directions are necessary only if such a convex polytope is an n-dimensional parallelotope (cf. [13]). To study the illumination of an n-dimensional convex polytope K with vertices when m is not too large, one can distinguish several cases based on the maximum number of vertices of such a polytope that are pairwise antipodal. Let be the set of vertices of K that is maximally pairwise antipodal and let be the set of the rest vertices. Then , where is an n-dimensional convex polytope whose vertices are pairwise antipodal. For this purpose, it is also important to develop characterizations of n-dimensional convex polytopes with m vertices that are pairwise antipodal.
In this paper, we present a characterization of three-dimensional convex polytopes with five pairwise antipodal vertices. Such polytopes are special cases of n-dimensional polytopes with vertices. Combinatorial properties of this type of polytopes can be found in Section 6.1 of [14].
For each convex body K and each -dimensional subspace H of , there exists a pair of distinct parallel supporting hyperplanes and of K that are parallel to H. The closed subset of bounded by and is called a supporting slab of K.
For each positive integer m, set
Let . The inner product of x and y is denoted as . The line segment connecting x and y is denoted by . I.e.,
When , set
The following two results follow directly from the classical result in [1].
Corollary 1.
Let be an m-dimensional affine subset and . Then there are at most points in X that are pairwise antipodal.
Corollary 2.
If X is an m-dimensional convex polytope with vertices, then the vertices are pairwise antipodal in X if and only if X is an m-dimensional parallelotope.
Lemma 1.
Let be a convex body. Two points are not antipodal if and only if there is a direction that illuminates both x and y.
Proof.
Lemma 5 in [15] shows that if x and y are not antipodal, then they can be illuminated by a direction.
Conversely, suppose that x and y are illuminated by a direction u. Then there exist such that . Let . Then . Hence, is not a longest chord of K that is parallel to the line passing through x and y. By 3.1 in [16], x and y are not antipodal. □
The proof of the following result demonstrates the usage of antipodality in the study of Hadwiger’s covering conjecture.
Lemma 2.
Let K be an n-dimensional convex polytope in having vertices. Then K can be illuminated by at most directions.
Proof.
Since there are at most points in that are pairwise antipodal (see [1] again), there exists a pair x and y of vertices of K that are not antipodal. By Lemma 1, x and y can be illuminated by a single direction, and the rest of the vertices can be illuminated by at most directions. □
The upper bound in Lemma 2 is not optimal if Hadwiger’s covering conjecture has an affirmative answer in : the boundary of such a polytope can be illuminated by at most directions. To improve the estimation in Lemma 2, one needs characterizations of convex polytopes in having pairwise antipodal vertices.
Let K be a compact convex set whose affine dimension is at least 1 and . Let
I.e., is the set of directions that can illuminate x as a relative boundary point of K. If K is a convex body in , then is an open subset of ; see [17].
Let be a nonempty closed convex set and . The tangent cone of A at x is the closure of the cone generated by —i.e.,
As a closed convex set, can also be described as an intersection of closed halfspaces (cf. page 65 in [18]).
Lemma 3.
Let K be a convex body in and . Then
Proof.
For any , there exists such that . Let . Then and
Thus, and therefore .
Suppose that where and . We claim that . If d is the origin o, then, for any and any positive integer k, is also a direction in and as . Thus, . Now, assume that . If , then obviously . Otherwise, . For any positive integer k, there exists , where is the closed Euclidean ball centered at u having radius . Thus, and as . Hence, . It follows that
Therefore, . Thus, . Since is open, we have (cf. Theorem 2.38 in [19])
The proof is complete. □
We end this section with the following lemma.
Lemma 4.
Let be a convex body and . Then can be illuminated by a direction in if and only if .
Proof.
If there exists a direction such that u illuminates , then there exists such that . Clearly, . Thus, .
Conversely, assume that . Let c be a fixed point in . There exists such that . Since is open, there exists such that the closed Euclidean ball centered at u having radius is contained in . Let v be a point in such that . Then,
I.e., is illuminated by a direction in . □
2. The Convex Hull of the Union of a Simplex and a Singleton
Throughout this section, is an n-simplex with as vertices and
For each , let
and be the unit vector in such that . Clearly, is constant on . Let be the open halfspace bounded by that contains and let be the other open halfspace bounded by . Obviously,
Let y be a point in and . One can easily verify that both and y are vertices of .
We have the following characterizations of and its closure.
Lemma 5.
We have
and
Proof.
Note that
By Example 5.2.6(b) in [18],
From Lemma 3, the desired equalities follow. □
We shall also use the following representation of .
Lemma 6.
We have
Proof.
By Lemma 5, we have
The proof is complete. □
Lemma 7.
The following statements are equivalent:
- 1.
- ,
- 2.
- .
Proof.
1⇒2. Since , we have . If , then there exists . Since is open, we may require further that . There exists such that
Then
Therefore we may assume, without loss of generality, that .
Since , by Lemma 5, there exists such that . I.e., . Without loss of generality, we may assume that . By Theorem 3.13 in [19], there exist and such that . Since and , . Then
Thus, . Since and , there exist and such that . Since z is a convex combination of , we have
It follows that , a contradiction.
2⇒1. Clearly, is a singleton, namely, . If , then there exists such that h is not in . Assume, without loss of generality, that . Since , there exists such that . We have
Thus, . Let be the point of intersection of and . Then
a contradiction to the assumption that . □
Lemma 8.
Suppose that and . The following statements are equivalent:
- 1.
- The points and are antipodal in .
- 2.
- .
Proof.
It is clear that . By Lemma 7, . Take the case when , for example.
1⇒2. Suppose the contrary that . Since is open (cf. [17]), there exists such that
where is the closed ball centered at y having radius . Let be a point in . Then . Since
there exists a direction that illuminates and as boundary points of simultaneously, a contradiction to the fact that and are antipodal.
2⇒1. Since , we have
Thus, , . By Lemma 4, it suffices to show that
For any , there exist and such that . From , it follows that . Actually, if , then holds for all because , . This implies that , a contradiction. Hence,
By Lemmas 5 and 7,
Thus, . □
Corollary 3.
If , then, for each , and are antipodal in if and only if
Results in this section have potential applications for characterizing antipodality of vertices of convex polytopes in high-dimensional spaces and can be directly applied to the three-dimensional case in the next section.
3. Main Results
Set
Put
For each , let
Proposition 1.
Each member of is a convex polytope with five pairwise antipodal vertices.
Proof.
Suppose that . Note that
and
Since , and are parallel supporting hyperplanes of K passing through and , respectively. Thus and are antipodal. From and , it follows that and , and and are two pairs of parallel supporting hyperplanes of K. Thus , , and are pairwise antipodal.
Let and . There exists such that
Note that
Since , we have , , and
From , it follows that . Therefore, , which shows that . Hence, , which implies that
Consider the three-simplex in . Since
by viewing and as and y in Section 2, respectively, from Lemmas 6 and 7, it follows that
Thus,
Let
Then
It follows that
Similarly, is a three-simplex in . View and as and y in Section 2, respectively. Since
by Lemmas 6 and 7, we have
Thus,
Let
Then
Thus, if and only if
Similarly, and are equivalent to
and
respectively.
Since
from it follows that
By Lemma 7 and Corollary 3, for each , and each point in are antipodal. Hence, the vertices of K are pairwise antipodal. □
Remark 1.
Figure 1.
The range of .
Theorem 1.
Let be a three-dimensional convex polytope with five vertices. Then the vertices of K are pairwise antipodal if and only if one of the following conditions holds:
- 1.
- K is the convex hull of the union of a singleton and a parallelogram.
- 2.
- K is affinely equivalent to a member of .
Proof.
Suppose that is the set of vertices of K. By Radon’s Lemma (cf. [20]), there are two possible cases.
Case 1. There exist two disjoint two-subsets I and J of such that
Without loss of generality, we may assume that
It follows that
Let .
First, suppose that the vertices of K are pairwise antipodal. From Corollaries 1 and 2, it follows that and that is a parallelogram. Therefore, K is a convex hull of the union of a singleton and a parallelogram.
Conversely, suppose that K is the convex hull of the union of a singleton and a parallelogram. If is not the singleton, then is coplanar with three points from , which would show that is contained in a plane, a contradiction. Thus, , where is a parallelogram (see Figure 2). Note that
is a three-simplex with vertices . Let C, , and be defined as in Section 2 for each . Since is a parallelogram and , we have
Figure 2.
K is the convex hull of the union of a singleton and a parallelogram.
Thus, , . For any , there exist such that
Therefore,
This means that K lies in the supporting slab between parallel hyperplanes and
Thus, and each point in are antipodal in K.
Since is parallelogram and , we have
For any , we have
Hence, K lies in the supporting slab between parallel hyperplanes and
Similarly,
For any , we have
Hence, K lies in the supporting slab between parallel hyperplanes and
It follows that , and are pairwise antipodal in K.
Case 2. There exists a two-subset I of such that intersects
in its relative interior. Without loss of generality, we may assume that
Set and . Then .
If K is affinely equivalent to a member of , then, by Proposition 1, K has pairwise antipodal vertices.
Suppose now that the vertices of K are pairwise antipodal. Let . It is clear that . Since , and are strictly separated by the hyperplane determined by . Then form a basis of . There exists a linear mapping such that
Clearly,
is a non-singular affine transformation. Let be the convex polytope in with the set of vertices
where
Let and .
First, we claim that . For each , there exist such that
Then,
Thus, . Conversely, for any , there exist such that
Then
which shows that . Hence, —i.e., K and are affinely equivalent.
In a similar way, we have
Since , we have
which implies that .
Let be defined as in the proof of Proposition 1. From , it follows that . Since K is affinely equivalent to and the vertices of K are pairwise antipodal, the vertices of are also pairwise antipodal. By Corollary 3, we have
Hence
Therefore, is a member of . □
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, S.W.; methodology, R.G., S.W., and C.H.; validation, S.W., L.Z., and C.H.; writing—original draft preparation, R.G.; writing—review and editing, S.W., C.H., and L.Z.; funding acquisition, S.W. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
The authors were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 12071444 and 12201581), and the Fundamental Research Program of Shanxi Province (grant numbers 202403021221109, 20210302124657, 202103021224291, and 202303021221116).
Data Availability Statement
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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