Abstract
For an n-dimensional simplex in the Euclidean space \(E^{n}\), we establish some generalized Finsler-Hadwiger inequalities. By using these inequalities, generalizations of some well-known important inequalities for simplices are obtained.
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1 Introduction
Let \(ABC\) be a triangle (in the Euclidean plane) of area S and sides a, b, c. The following inequality [1, 2] is well known:
Equality holds iff this triangle is regular.
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-dimensional simplex (in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \(E^{n}\)) of volume V and edge lengths \(a_{i}\) (\(i=1,2,\ldots,\frac{1}{2}n(n+1)\)). Let \(A_{i}\) (\(i=0,1,\ldots,n\)) be the vertices of \(\Omega_{n}\), \(F_{i}\) be the \((n-1)\)-dimensional volume of the ith face \(f_{i}=A_{0}\cdots A_{i-1}A_{i+1}\cdots A_{n+1}\) (\((n-1)\)-dimensional simplex) for \(i=0,1,\ldots, n\). In 1989, Chen and Ma extended the inequality (1.1) to an n-simplex and established Finsler-Hadwiger type inequality for the edge length and the volume of an n-simplex as follows [3, 4]:
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
In 1997, Leng and Tang established another kind of Finsler-Hadwiger type inequality for the face areas and the volume of an n-simplex as follows [4, 5]:
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
In this paper, we will discuss problem for generalized Finsler-Hadwiger type inequalities for k-dimensional face areas and the volume of an n-simplex, and establish generalized Finsler-Hadwiger type inequalities for an n-simplex. From these inequalities, generalizations of some inequalities for an n-simplex are obtained.
2 Main results
Let R and r be the circumradius and the inradius of the simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), respectively. Let \(V_{0}\) denote the volume of the n-dimensional regular simplex with circumradius R. For \(k=0,1,\ldots,n-1\), we put \(\mu_{n,k}=\binom{n+1}{k+1}={\frac{(n+1)!}{(k+1)!(n-k)!}}\). Let \(V_{i}(k)\) (\(i=1,2,\ldots, \mu_{n,k}\)) denote the k-dimensional volumes of the k-dimensional subsimplices of \(\Omega_{n}\). Our main results are the following theorems.
Theorem 1
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex, nature number \(k\in[1,n-1]\), real numbers \(\alpha\in(0,1]\) and \(\lambda\in(0,n+1-k]\). Then we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Theorem 2
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex, nature number \(k\in[1,n-1]\), real numbers \(\alpha\in(0,1]\) and \(\lambda\in(0,n+1-k]\). Then we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Notice
From the inequality \(R\geq nr\) and Lemma 3, we have \(\frac{R}{nr}\geq1\) and \(\frac{V_{0}}{V}\geq1\), respectively. Further, according to the conditions of equalities hold, we now consider a class of n-simplices φ inscribed in an \((n-1)\)-dimensional sphere of radius R (where R is constant number). If the radius r of an n-simplex in φ is sufficiently small, then \(\frac{R}{nr}\) is large enough. Similarly, if the volume V of an n-simplex in φ is sufficiently small, then \(\frac{V_{0}}{V}\) is sufficiently large.
Take \(\lambda=n+1-k\), from Theorem 1 or Theorem 2 we derive an inequality for a simplex as follows.
Corollary 1
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex and real number \(\alpha\in(0,1]\). Then
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
By taking \(k=1\) and \(\alpha=1\) in the inequality (2.3) we can obtain the inequality (1.2). Take \(k=n-1\) and \(\alpha=1\) in the inequality (2.3) we can obtain the inequality (1.3).
Take \(k=1\), \(\alpha=1\) and \(\lambda=n\) in Theorem 1 and Theorem 2, we get generalizations of the inequality (1.2) as follows.
Corollary 2
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Take \(k=n-1\), \(\alpha=1\), and \(\lambda=2\) in Theorem 1 and Theorem 2; we get generalizations of the inequality (1.3) as follows.
Corollary 3
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex. Then we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
To prove the above theorems, we need some lemmas as follows.
Lemma 1
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), we have
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Lemma 2
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex with edge lengths \(a_{ij}=|A_{i}A_{j}|\) (\(0\leq i< j\leq n\)), then we have
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Lemma 3
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), we have
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Lemma 4
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Lemma 5
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex and natural number \(k\in[1,n-1)\). Then
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Lemma 6
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), we have
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Proof
Let P be an interior point of \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(d_{i}\) the distance from the point P to the ith face \(f_{i}\) of \(\Omega_{n}\) for \(i=0,1,\ldots,n\). Obviously, we have \(\sum_{i=0}^{n}d_{i}F_{i}=nV\). Then
Using the arithmetic-geometric means inequality we get
namely
Substituting (2.11) into (2.14) we get
We now take the point P is the incenter of \(\Omega_{n}\), then \(d_{i}=r\) for \(i=0,1,\ldots,n\). Thus from (2.15) we can obtain the inequality (2.13). It is easy to see that equality holds in (2.13) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular. □
Lemma 7
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(k=1,2,\ldots, n-1\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Proof
We have the well-known inequality [4, 10, 11]
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Using (2.18) and (2.11) we get
From (2.19) and (2.18) we have
Thus, inequality (2.16) is valid for \(k=n-1\). We now prove that inequality (2.16) is valid for \(1\leq k< n-1\). Substituting (2.20) into (2.12) we can obtain inequality (2.16). So the inequality (2.16) is valid for \(1\leq k< n-1\). It is easy to see that equality holds in (2.16) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
By Lemma 3 we have
Substituting (2.21) into the right of (2.9) we get
Thus the equality (2.17) is valid for \(k=n-1\). Now we prove that inequality (2.17) is valid for \(1\leq k< n-1\). Substituting (2.23) into the right of (2.12) we can obtain inequality (2.17). So the inequality (2.17) is valid for \(1\leq k< n-1\). It is easy to see that equality holds in (2.16) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular. □
Lemma 8
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex and real number \(\alpha\in(0,1]\). Then
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Proof of Theorem 1 and Theorem 2
The inequality (2.1) can be written as
Now we prove that the inequality (2.25) is valid.
Let \(p(k,\alpha, \delta)\) denote the left of the inequality (2.25). Then
where σ = {\((i_{1},i_{2},\ldots,i_{k+2})|\) there exists a \((k+1)\)-subsimplex \(A_{i_{1}}A_{i_{2}}\cdots A_{i_{k+2}}\) of \(\Omega_{n}\), such that its \(k+2\) side areas are \(V_{i_{1}}(k), V_{i_{2}}(k),\ldots, V_{i_{k+2}}(k)\) (\(1\leq i_{1}< i_{2}<\cdots< i_{k+2}\mu_{n,k}\))}, and τ = {\((i_{p},i_{q}) |\) there is not a \((k+1)\)-subsimplex of \(\Omega_{n}\), such that its two side areas are \(V_{i_{p}}(k)\), \(V_{i_{q}}(k)\)}.
On the other hand, we easily get
We put \(m=|\sigma|\), then \(m=\binom{n+1}{k+2}=\frac{n-k}{k+2}\cdot \mu_{n,k}\). If \((i_{1},i_{2},\ldots,i_{k+2})\in\sigma\), we use \(V_{i}(k+1)\) to denote the volume of \(k+1\)-subsimplex with side areas \(V_{i_{1}}(k), V_{i_{2}}(k),\ldots, V_{i_{k+2}}(k)\). By Lemma 8 we have
Equality holds iff the simplex \(A_{i_{1}}A_{i_{2}}\cdots A_{i_{k+2}}\) is regular.
Using the arithmetic-geometric means inequality, (2.27), and (2.16) we get
By the arithmetic-geometric means inequality, and by (2.16), we get
From (2.26), (2.28), and (2.29) we get
Thus the equality (2.25) is valid. It is easy to prove that the equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular. □
Similarly, we can prove that (2.2) is true by the same method.
3 Some applications
Geometric inequalities for simplices which are the simplest and useful polytopes have been a very attractive subject for a long time. Mitrinović, Pečarić, Volenec, Zhang and Yang and other authors have obtained a great number of elegant results (see [8]). Specially, we mention the well-known Euler inequality for a simplex, inequalities for the width of a simplex, and inequalities related the interior point of a simplex. In this section we shall improve these inequalities by using the results in the above section.
LF Tóth extended the Euler inequality \(R\geq2r\) for a triangle to an n-dimensional simplex and obtained the Euler inequality for an n-simplex as follows [8, 10]:
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Let O and I denote the circumcenter and the incenter of an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), respectively. Let G be the barycenter of \(\Omega_{n}\). Klamkin [8, 12] and Yang and Wang obtained the following generalizations of (3.1):
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
We shall use these results in the above section to study related inequalities, and we obtain a strengthened Euler inequality as follows.
Theorem 3
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(k=1,2,\ldots, n-1\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
If take \(k=1\) and \(k=n-1\) in (3.4) and (3.5), we get two corollaries as follows.
Corollary 4
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(k=1,2,\ldots, n-1\), we have
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Corollary 5
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(k=1,2,\ldots, n-1\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Proof of Theorem 3
If take \(\alpha=1\) and \(\lambda=n+1-k\) in (2.1) and (2.2), we obtain
We use the well-known equality [8, 12]
and the well-known inequality [4, 13]
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular. When \(k=1\), then (3.13) is the identity.
We use the well-known inequality in [8]
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
From (3.10), (3.14), and (3.15) we can obtain (3.4). By (3.11), (3.14), and (3.15) we can obtain (3.5). It is easy to see that equality holds in (3.4) or (3.5) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular. □
Let ω be the width of \(\Omega_{n}\). We put
In 1977, Alexander [8, 14] proved Sallee’s conjecture and obtained the inequality
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
In 1983, Yang and Zhang [8, 15] improved (3.16) and established an inequality as follows:
with equality iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
In this section, we shall give generalizations of the equalities (3.16) and (3.17) by using (2.4) and (2.5) in the above section.
Theorem 4
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(k=1,2,\ldots, n-1\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Proof
We use the well-known inequality in [15] as follows:
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
The above inequality can be written as
By (3.20) and (2.6) we can get (3.18), and from (3.20) and (2.7) we can get (3.19). □
Substituting (2.10) into (3.18) and (3.19) we obtain generalizations of the inequality (3.16) as follows.
Corollary 6
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(k=1,2,\ldots, n-1\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
For \(i=0,1,\ldots, n\), let \(h_{i}\) be the altitude of the ith face of the simplex \(\Omega_{n}\). The following inequality is well known (see [8]):
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
By using the results in Section 2 we can obtain generalizations of the inequality (3.23) as follows.
Theorem 5
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(k=1,2,\ldots, n-1\), we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
Proof
We take \(k=n-1\) in (2.16) and (2.17), and get
Using the formula \(F_{i}=\frac{nV}{h_{i}}\) (see [8]) and (3.26) we get
By Theorem 3 we get
Substituting (3.29) into (3.28) we get
We use the well-known inequality in [4, 8] as follows:
with equality holding iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
From (3.30) and (3.31) we can obtain (3.24). It is easy to see that equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
By a similar method we can prove that inequality (3.25) is also valid. □
Let P be an interior point of \(\Omega_{n}\) and \(d_{i}\) the distance from the point P to the ith face \(f_{i}\) of \(\Omega_{n}\) for \(i=0,1, \ldots, n\). In [8], Gerber established the following inequality:
For any natural number \(m>0\), Leng and Ma [16] obtained an inequality as follows:
Equalities hold in (3.32) and (3.33) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular and P is the center of \(\Omega_{n}\).
By using the results in the Section 2 we can obtain generalizations of (3.32) and (3.33) as follows.
Theorem 6
For an n-simplex \(\Omega_{n}\), we have
Equality holds in (3.32) or (3.33) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular and P is the center of \(\Omega_{n}\).
Proof
By (2.14), we have
We use the well-known inequality in [7] as follows:
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular.
From (3.36) and (3.38) we can obtain (3.34). It is easy to see that equality holds in (3.34) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular and P is the center of \(\Omega_{n}\).
By a similar method we can prove that (3.35) is valid. □
Theorem 7
Let \(\Omega_{n}\) be an n-simplex and \(m>0\) a natural number, then we have
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular and P is the center of \(\Omega_{n}\), where
Proof
We use the following well-known inequality (3.8) in [16]:
i.e.
Equality holds iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular and P is the center of \(\Omega_{n}\).
From (2.18) we have
Substituting (3.42) into (3.42) and using (3.6) we can obtain (3.39). It is easy to see that equality holds in (3.39) iff \(\Omega_{n}\) is regular and P is the center of \(\Omega_{n}\).
The proof of (3.4) is similar. □
In fact, the strengthening of some well-known inequalities for simplices can be derived from Theorem 1 and Theorem 2. In this paper, we omit the details.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the Doctoral Programs Foundation of Education Ministry of China (20113401110009) and Foundation of Anhui higher school (KJ2013A220); Natural Science Research Project of Hefei Normal University (2012kj11). The authors are grateful for the help.
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Yang, S., Wang, W. Generalized Finsler-Hadwiger type inequalities for simplices and applications. J Inequal Appl 2015, 56 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13660-015-0572-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13660-015-0572-0