Satellite configurations for Besicovitch covering lemma in vector spaces #
The Besicovitch covering theorem ensures that, in a nice metric space, there exists a number N
such that, from any family of balls with bounded radii, one can extract N
families, each made of
disjoint balls, covering together all the centers of the initial family.
A key tool in the proof of this theorem is the notion of a satellite configuration, i.e., a family
of N + 1
balls, where the first N
balls all intersect the last one, but none of them contains
the center of another one and their radii are controlled. This is a technical notion, but it shows
up naturally in the proof of the Besicovitch theorem (which goes through a greedy algorithm): to
ensure that in the end one needs at most N
families of balls, the crucial property of the
underlying metric space is that there should be no satellite configuration of N + 1
points.
This file is devoted to the study of this property in vector spaces: we prove the main result
of Füredi and Loeb, On the best constant for the Besicovitch covering theorem,
which shows that the optimal such N
in a vector space coincides with the maximal number
of points one can put inside the unit ball of radius 2
under the condition that their distances
are bounded below by 1
.
In particular, this number is bounded by 5 ^ dim
by a straightforward measure argument.
Main definitions and results #
multiplicity E
is the maximal number of points one can put inside the unit ball of radius2
in the vector spaceE
, under the condition that their distances are bounded below by1
.multiplicity_le E
shows thatmultiplicity E ≤ 5 ^ (dim E)
.good_τ E
is a constant> 1
, but close enough to1
that satellite configurations with this parameterτ
are not worst than forτ = 1
.isEmpty_satelliteConfig_multiplicity
is the main theorem, saying that there are no satellite configurations of(multiplicity E) + 1
points, for the parametergoodτ E
.
Rescaling a satellite configuration in a vector space, to put the basepoint at 0
and the base
radius at 1
.
Equations
- One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.
Instances For
Disjoint balls of radius close to 1
in the radius 2
ball. #
The maximum cardinality of a 1
-separated set in the ball of radius 2
. This is also the
optimal number of families in the Besicovitch covering theorem.
Equations
Instances For
Any 1
-separated set in the ball of radius 2
has cardinality at most 5 ^ dim
. This is
useful to show that the supremum in the definition of Besicovitch.multiplicity E
is
well behaved.
If δ
is small enough, a (1-δ)
-separated set in the ball of radius 2
also has cardinality
at most multiplicity E
.
A small positive number such that any 1 - δ
-separated set in the ball of radius 2
has
cardinality at most Besicovitch.multiplicity E
.
Equations
- Besicovitch.goodδ E = ⋯.choose
Instances For
A number τ > 1
, but chosen close enough to 1
so that the construction in the Besicovitch
covering theorem using this parameter τ
will give the smallest possible number of covering
families.
Equations
- Besicovitch.goodτ E = 1 + Besicovitch.goodδ E / 4
Instances For
Relating satellite configurations to separated points in the ball of radius 2
. #
We prove that the number of points in a satellite configuration is bounded by the maximal number
of 1
-separated points in the ball of radius 2
. For this, start from a satellite configuration
c
. Without loss of generality, one can assume that the last ball is centered at 0
and of
radius 1
. Define c' i = c i
if ‖c i‖ ≤ 2
, and c' i = (2/‖c i‖) • c i
if ‖c i‖ > 2
.
It turns out that these points are 1 - δ
-separated, where δ
is arbitrarily small if τ
is
close enough to 1
. The number of such configurations is bounded by multiplicity E
if δ
is
suitably small.
To check that the points c' i
are 1 - δ
-separated, one treats separately the cases where
both ‖c i‖
and ‖c j‖
are ≤ 2
, where one of them is ≤ 2
and the other one is > 2
, and
where both of them are > 2
.
In a normed vector space E
, there can be no satellite configuration with multiplicity E + 1
points and the parameter goodτ E
. This will ensure that in the inductive construction to get
the Besicovitch covering families, there will never be more than multiplicity E
nonempty
families.