Gravitational allocation for uniform points on the sphere

Abstract

Given a collection $\mathcal L$ of $n$ points on a sphere $\mathbf{S}^2_n$ of surface area $n$, a fair allocation is a partition of the sphere into $n$ parts each of area $1$, and each associated with a distinct point of $\mathcal L$. We show that if the $n$ points are chosen uniformly at random and the partition is defined by considering the gravitational field defined by the $n$ points, then the expected distance between a point on the sphere and the associated point of $\mathcal L$ is $O(\sqrt{\log n})$. We use our result to define a matching between two collections of $n$ independent and uniform points on the sphere, and prove that the expected distance between a pair of matched points is $O(\sqrt{\log n})$, which is optimal by a result of Ajtai, Komlós, and Tusnády.