Arrangements of Convex Bodies - the Discrete Geometric Side

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One can briefly describe discrete geometry as the study of discrete arrangements of geometric objects in Euclidean as well as in non-Euclidean spaces. Discrete geometry has very strong connections to a number of research areas in pure mathematics such as convexity, combinatorics, rigidity, geometric analysis, computational geometry, and geometric groups. Also, it is connected to some research areas in communication and information technologies and crystallography. The proposal of Dr. Karoly Bezdek (U of C) belongs to the above broad area of discrete geometry and it aims at achieving the following two major goals. On the one hand, the nine proposed research problems intend to advance the interplay between geometry, analysis, and combinatorics via joint collaborations with established and junior researchers as well as undergraduate and graduate students. On the other hand, the proposal intends to form the basis of the mentoring and training of undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows. In somewhat more details, the research component of Dr. Bezdek's proposal continues the research work of his previous NSERC discovery grant on topics such as ball-polyhedra, contact graphs, soft packings, totally separable packings, covering convex bodies by cylinders, and non-separable arrangements of convex bodies via working on a number of new research problems proposed around them. On the other hand, he plans to work on fundamentally new research projects as well such as crystallization via soft ball packings, Mahler-type problems for r-ball bodies, packing convex bodies by cylinders, and volumetric geometry of molecules. As some of these problems have been obtained from applied problems of crystallography and computational biology there is hope that their solutions will progress those applications and create a new mathematical theory for them. In addition, the proposal targets the two covering conjectures of Bang (1951), the revised Goodman-Goodman conjecture (1945), the Kneser-Poulsen conjecture (1955), and the Gromov conjecture (1987), which are longstanding fundamental problems of discrete geometry. The proposed methods are combinations of methods from discrete, convex, and differential geometry, geometric analysis, and probability. The training component of Dr. Bezdek's proposal intends to bring in a number of new undergraduate and graduate as well as postdoctoral students for geometry research by expanding the boundaries of collaborative research work and by closing the gap between research and academic teaching. Due to recent breakthroughs in discrete geometry and due to recent increase in student enrolment on all levels at U of C the timing seems to be ideal for achieving the above goals.