Isoperimetric problems for zonotopes

Abstract

Shephard (Canad. J. Math. 26: 302-321, 1974) proved a decomposition theorem for zonotopes yielding a simple formula for their volume. In this note we prove a generalization of this theorem yielding similar formulas for their intrinsic volumes. We use this result to investigate geometric extremum problems for zonotopes generated by a given number of segments. In particular, we solve isoperimetric problems for d-dimensional zonotopes generated by d or d+1 segments, and give asymptotic estimates for the solutions of similar problems for zonotopes generated by sufficiently many segments. In addition, we present applications of our results to the \ell_1$ polarization problem on the unit sphere and to a vector-valued Maclaurin inequality conjectured by Brazitikos and McIntyre in 2021.