Sections and projections of nested convex bodies

Abstract

One of the most important problems in Geometric Tomography is to establish properties of a given convex body if we know some properties over its sections or its projections. There are many interesting and deep results that provide characterizations of the sphere and the ellipsoid in terms of the properties of its sections or projections. Another kind of characterization of the ellipsoid is when we consider properties of the support cones. However, in almost all the known characterizations, we have only a convex body and the sections, projections, or support cones are considered for this given body. In this article we prove some results that characterize the Euclidean ball or the ellipsoid when the sections or projections are taken for a pair of nested convex bodies, i.e., two convex bodies K, L such that $$L\subset $$ int K. We impose some relations between the corresponding sections or projections and some apparently new characterizations of the ball or the ellipsoid appear. We also deal with properties of support cones or point source shadow boundaries when the apexes are taken in the boundary of K.