Atiyah-Sutcliffe Conjectures for Almost Collinear Configurations and Some New Conjectures for Symmetric Functions

Abstract

In 2001 Sir M. F. Atiyah formulated a conjecture (C1) and later with P. Sutcliffe two stronger conjectures (C2) and (C3). These conjectures, inspired by physics (spin-statistics theorem of quantum mechanics), are geometrically defined for any configuration of points in the Euclidean three space. The conjecture (C1) is proved for n=3,4 and for general n only for some special configurations (M. F. Atiyah, M. Eastwood and P. Norbury, D. Djokovic). In this paper we shall explain some new conjectures for symmetric functions which imply (C2) and (C3) for almost collinear configurations. Computations up to n=6 are performed with a help of Maple and J. Stembridge's package SF for symmetric functions. For n=4 the conjectures (C2) and (C3) we have also verified for some infinite families of tetrahedra. This is a joint work with I. Urbiha. Finally we mention that by minimizing a geometrically defined energy, figuring in these conjectures, one gets a connection to some complicated physical theories, such as Skyrmions and Fullerenes.