Expected intrinsic volumes and facet numbers of random beta-polytopes

TL;DR

This paper provides exact formulas for the expected intrinsic volumes and facet counts of random beta-polytopes, unifying various models including uniform sphere and Gaussian distributions, using geometric integral formulas.

Contribution

It derives exact and asymptotic formulas for intrinsic volumes and facet numbers of convex hulls of random points from beta and beta' distributions, extending previous asymptotic results.

Findings

Exact formulas for expected intrinsic volumes.

Exact formulas for expected number of facets.

Unified treatment of sphere and Gaussian models.

Abstract

Let $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be i.i.d.\ random points in the $d$-dimensional Euclidean space sampled according to one of the following probability densities: $$ f_{d,\beta} (x) = \text{const} \cdot (1-\|x\|^2)^{\beta}, \quad \|x\|\leq 1, \quad \text{(the beta case)} $$ and $$ \tilde f_{d,\beta} (x) = \text{const} \cdot (1+\|x\|^2)^{-\beta}, \quad x\in\mathbb{R}^d, \quad \text{(the beta' case).} $$ We compute exactly the expected intrinsic volumes and the expected number of facets of the convex hull of $X_1,\ldots,X_n$. Asymptotic formulae where obtained previously by Affentranger [The convex hull of random points with spherically symmetric distributions, 1991]. By studying the limits of the beta case when $\beta\downarrow -1$, respectively $\beta \uparrow +\infty$, we can also cover the models in which $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ are uniformly distributed on the unit sphere or normally distributed, respectively. We obtain similar results for the random polytopes defined as the convex hulls of $\pm X_1,\ldots,\pm X_n$ and $0,X_1,\ldots,X_n$. One of the main tools used in the proofs is the Blaschke-Petkantschin formula.