Sharpening Geometric Inequalities using Computable Symmetry Measures

Many classical geometric inequalities on functionals of convex bodies depend on the dimension of the ambient space. We show that this dimension dependence may often be replaced (totally or partially) by different symmetry measures of the convex body. Since these coefficients are bounded by the dimension but possibly smaller, our inequalities sharpen the original ones. Since they can often be computed efficiently, the improved bounds may also be used to obtain better bounds in approximation algorithms.Comment: This is a preprint. The proper publication in final form is available at journals.cambridge.org, DOI 10.1112/S002557931400029

Iteration of Involutes of Constant Width Curves in the Minkowski Plane

In this paper we study properties of the area evolute (AE) and the center symmetry set (CSS) of a convex planar curve $\gamma$. The main tool is to define a Minkowski plane where $\gamma$ becomes a constant width curve. In this Minkowski plane, the CSS is the evolute of $\gamma$ and the AE is an involute of the CSS. We prove that the AE is contained in the region bounded by the CSS and has smaller signed area. The iteration of involutes generate a pair of sequences of constant width curves with respect to the Minkowski metric and its dual, respectively. We prove that these sequences are converging to symmetric curves with the same center, which can be regarded as a central point of the curve $\gamma$.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure