Equilateral sets and a Sch\"utte Theorem for the 4-norm

Abstract

A well-known theorem of Sch\"utte (1963) gives a sharp lower bound for the ratio between the maximum distance and minimum distance between n+2 points in n-dimensional Euclidean space. In this brief note we adapt B\'ar\'any's elegant proof of this theorem to the space $\ell_4^n$. This gives a new proof that the largest cardinality of an equilateral set in $\ell_4^n$ is n+1, and gives a constructive bound for an interval $(4-\epsilon_n,4+\epsilon_n)$ of values of p close to 4 for which it is guaranteed that the largest cardinality of an equilateral set in $\ell_p^n$ is n+1.