Unit balls of constant volume: which one has optimal representation?

Abstract

In the family of unit balls with constant volume we look at the ones whose algebraic representation has some extremal property. We consider the family of nonnegative homogeneous polynomials of even degree $d$ whose sublevel set $\G=\{\x: g(\x)\leq 1\}$ (a unit ball) has same fixed volume and want to find in this family the one that minimizes either the $\ell_1$-norm or the $\ell_2$-norm of its vector of coefficients. Equivalently, among all degree-$d$ polynomials of constant $\ell_1-$ or $\ell_2$-norm, which one minimizes the volume of its level set $\G$. We first show that in both cases this is a convex optimization problem with a unique optimal solution $g^*_1$ and $g^*_2$ respectively. We also show that $g^*_1$ is the $L_p$-norm polynomial $\x\mapsto\sum_{i=1}^n x_i^{p}$, thus recovering a parsimony property of the $L_p$-norm via $\ell_1$-norm minimization. (Indeed $n=\Vert g^*_1\Vert_0$ is the minimum number of non-zero coefficient for $\G$ to have finite volume.) This once again illustrates the power and versatility of the $\ell_1$-norm relaxation strategy in optimization when one searches for an optimal solution with parsimony properties. Next we show that $g^*_2$ is not sparse at all (and so differs from $g^*_1$) but is still a sum of $p$-powers of linear forms. We also characterize the unique optimal solution of the same problem where one searches for an SOS homogeneous polynomial that minimizes the trace of its associated (psd) Gram matrix, hence aiming at finding a solution which is a sum of a few squares only. Finally, we also extend these results to generalized homogeneous polynomials, which includes $L_p$-norms when $0