Continuous Maps from Spheres Converging to Boundaries of Convex Hulls

Abstract

Abstract Given n distinct points $\mathbf {x}_1, \ldots , \mathbf {x}_n$ in $\mathbb {R}^d$ , let K denote their convex hull, which we assume to be d-dimensional, and $B = \partial K $ its $(d-1)$ -dimensional boundary. We construct an explicit, easily computable one-parameter family of continuous maps $\mathbf {f}_{\varepsilon } \colon \mathbb {S}^{d-1} \to K$ which, for $\varepsilon> 0$ , are defined on the $(d-1)$ -dimensional sphere, and whose images $\mathbf {f}_{\varepsilon }({\mathbb {S}^{d-1}})$ are codimension $1$ submanifolds contained in the interior of K. Moreover, as the parameter $\varepsilon $ goes to $0^+$ , the images $\mathbf {f}_{\varepsilon } ({\mathbb {S}^{d-1}})$ converge, as sets, to the boundary B of the convex hull. We prove this theorem using techniques from convex geometry of (spherical) polytopes and set-valued homology. We further establish an interesting relationship with the Gauss map of the polytope B, appropriately defined. Several computer plots illustrating these results are included.