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arXiv · 2609.22077

Energy minimization for eight points on the sphere

Liudmyla Kryvonos·Lukas Liehr·Mitchell A. Taylor
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Abstract

We study the energy minimization problem for eight points on the unit sphere. For the logarithmic and Coulomb energies, we show that the unique global minimizer up to congruence is a square antiprism with height characterized by a unique stationarity equation. The proof is computer-assisted and fully verified in Lean. After this, we consider generalizations of the result to other important energies. For the Riesz $s$-energies, we provide a Lean-verified, non-computer-assisted proof that the square antiprism with height depending on $s$ is the unique global minimizer for all sufficiently large $s$, and a computer-assisted proof that this in fact holds for all $s\geq 0$. We also give examples of energies arising from completely monotonic potentials for which the square antiprism is not a global minimizer, answering in the negative a universality question of Cohn and Woo.

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Liudmyla Kryvonos, Lukas Liehr, Mitchell A. Taylor. 2026-09-18. Energy minimization for eight points on the sphere. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22077

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