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Omri Abas
Mathematics · Research articles

Random Width and Brightness: Polyhedral Density Theory, Reconstruction, and Gaussian Identifiability

Omri AbasORCID (Independent Researcher)

PreprintNot peer reviewed

Abstract

Let UU be uniformly distributed on the unit sphere. We develop a self-contained forward and inverse theory for the random width wK(U)w_K(U) and brightness bK(U)b_K(U) of three-dimensional convex bodies. For every full-dimensional polytope, a global spherical co-area formula expresses the width density as a finite sum of angular apertures determined by the normal fan of its difference body; in particular, the density is piecewise real analytic with a finite geometrically determined critical set. This theory yields exact densities for the width of the regular tetrahedron, resolving a question of Finch, and for the regular truncated octahedron, together with the tetrahedral brightness law and the equivalent rhombic-dodecahedral width law. On the inverse side, second- and third-order polarized cosine-transform moments reconstruct finite labelled direction systems whenever the observed triangles span the cycle space of the correlation graph; signed-graph switching describes the unavoidable ambiguity. In contrast, equal three-dimensional intrinsic volumes do not determine either the width law or the brightness law, even for centrally symmetric bodies. Removing the spatial rank constraint gives a dimension-free identifiability theorem for centered multivariate folded-normal vectors: pairwise absolute moments and an anchored family of triple absolute moments, comprising ∣m−1∣2|m-1|^2 labelled observations for a complete correlation graph, determine the correlation matrix up to diagonal sign conjugacy without fourth-order moments. A harmonic decomposition further identifies the degree-two variance contribution as a constant multiple of the squared Frobenius norm of the traceless part of the weighted frame operator and explains why this contribution vanishes under irreducible symmetry.

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Details

Keywords
Random width, Brightness, Polytope, Spherical co-area formula, Cosine transform, Finite tomography, Signed graphs, Multivariate folded normal distribution
MSC 2020
52A22, 52B10, 60D05, 05C22, 62H05
First posted
10 August 2026
arXiv versions
  • v1 (2026-08-10)

How to cite

Text
Omri Abas (2026). Random Width and Brightness: Polyhedral Density Theory, Reconstruction, and Gaussian Identifiability. arXiv:2609.26202. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21870870
BibTeX
@misc{abas2026,
  title = {{Random Width and Brightness: Polyhedral Density Theory, Reconstruction, and Gaussian Identifiability}},
  author = {Omri Abas},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.21870870},
  eprint = {2609.26202},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv}
}