Absolute minima of potentials of certain regular spherical configurations

Abstract

We use methods of approximation theory to find the absolute minima on the sphere of the potential of spherical $(2m-3)$-designs with a non-trivial index $2m$ that are contained in a union of $m$ parallel hyperplanes, $m\ge 2$, whose locations satisfy certain additional assumptions. The interaction between points is described by a function of the dot product, which has positive derivatives of orders $2m-2$, $2m-1$, and $2m$. This includes the case of the classical Coulomb, Riesz, and logarithmic potentials as well as a completely monotone potential of the distance squared. We illustrate this result by showing that the absolute minimum of the potential of the set of vertices of the icosahedron on the unit sphere $S^2$ in $R^3$ is attained at the vertices of the dual dodecahedron and the one for the set of vertices of the dodecahedron is attained at the vertices of the dual icosahedron. The absolute minimum of the potential of the configuration of 240 minimal vectors of $E_8$ root lattice normalized to lie on the unit sphere $S^7$ in $R^8$ is attained at a set of 2160 points on $S^7$ which we describe.