Divide and Conquer: A Distributed Approach to Five Point Energy Minimization

Abstract

This work rigorously verifies the phase transition in 5-point energy minimization first observed by Melnyk-Knop-Smith in 1977. More precisely, we prove that there is a constant S = [15+24/512,15+25/512] such that the triangular bi-pyramid is the energy minimizer with respect to the s-power law potential for all s in (0,S) and some pyramid with square base is the unique minimizer for all s in (S,15+512/25]. Taking s=1 gives another solution to Thomson's 5 electron problem from 1904.