A Proof of the Simplex Mean Width Conjecture

Abstract

The mean width of a convex body is the average distance between parallel supporting hyperplanes when the normal direction is chosen uniformly over the sphere. The Simplex Mean Width Conjecture (SMWC) is a longstanding open problem that says the regular simplex has maximum mean width of all simplices contained in the unit ball and is unique up to isometry. We give a self contained proof of the SMWC in $d$ dimensions. The main idea is that when discussing mean width, $d+1$ vertices $v_i\in\mathbb{S}^{d-1}$ naturally divide $\mathbb{S}^{d-1}$ into $d+1$ Voronoi cells and conversely any partition of $\mathbb{S}^{d-1}$ points to selecting the centroids of regions as vertices. We will show that these two conditions are enough to ensure that a simplex with maximum mean width is a regular simplex.