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Let a nonempty set $A \subset \mathbb{R}^N$ (with $N \geq 3$) be bounded, open, and connected. (Preferably, the boundary of $A$ has some reasonable smoothness, say, Lipschitz.) Suppose that $A$ is neither a ball nor a spherical shell.

Can such $A$ be 8-fold rotationally symmetric with respect to any pair of coordinate vectors $x_i$ and $x_j$?

Notice that in the case $N=2$ this is evidently true. Moreover, the answer would be also affirmative for any dimension if the assumption that $A$ is open and connected is dropped, see an explanation here. On the other hand, under the imposed assumptions, it seems to me that in the case $N=3$ the existence of such $A$ is not possible. See also a related question.

Voliar
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    According to my calculations a certain 45-degree rotation in the $x_1x_2$-plane followed by a 45-degree in the $x_1x_3$-plane has eigenvalues (in 3D or higher) $\lambda=e^{\pm i\alpha}$ with the angle of rotation $\alpha$ determined by $\cos\alpha=(-1+2\sqrt2)/4$. The minimal polynomial of $\lambda$ is then easily verified to be $f(x)=1+x+\frac{x^2}2+x^3+x^4$. So $\lambda$ is not a root of unity. This means the multiples of this combined rotation form a dense group of rotations (all about the same axis in 3D and an $(N-2)$-dimensional subspace in general). – Jyrki Lahtonen Aug 05 '20 at 09:13
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    (cont'd) I would think that with a few continuity assumptions in place, this forces $A$ to be symmetric w.r.t. all rotations about that axis. Then we can start conjugating further to move the axis around, and end up with symmetry under the full rotation group. Of course, a missing link is the step whether the group of symmetries of $A$ should be a closed subgroup of $SO(N)$? – Jyrki Lahtonen Aug 05 '20 at 09:15
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  • So the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-polytope (ie the octahedron in 3-d) would be an example of this with 4-fold rotationally symmetry (but not 8-fold) in every coordinate plane? – quarague Aug 11 '20 at 07:04
  • By "any pair" do you mean "every pair"? – Moishe Kohan Aug 14 '20 at 15:10
  • @Moishe Kohan Yes, every pair. – Voliar Aug 14 '20 at 19:24
  • @quarague Right, at least in 3d this is an example of 4-fold (but not 8-fold) symmetric domain. – Voliar Aug 14 '20 at 19:28
  • A related question about 3D (with an affirmative answer): https://mathoverflow.net/questions/62156/maneuvering-with-limited-moves-on-s2 – Voliar Sep 28 '20 at 15:22

1 Answers1

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In fact, if $A\subset {\mathbb R}^n$ is an open nonempty connected subset which has an 8-fold rotational symmetry in every coordinate plane, then $A$ is either a ball (possibly of infinite radius) or a spherical shell (again, of possibly infinite radius).

Let me first make your question a bit more precise. Consider ${\mathbb R}^n$ with the standard inner product $\langle .,.\rangle$ and the corresponding special orthogonal group $G=SO(n)$ consisting of linear transformations with unit determinant preserving $\langle .,.\rangle$. Given a linear subspace $V\subset {\mathbb R}^n$ let $G_V$ denote the subgroup of $G$ consisting of orthogonal transformations preserving $V$ and fixing the orthogonal complement of $V$ element-wise. I will use the notation $V_{ij}$, $V_{ijk}$ to denote the subspace of $V$ spanned by the coordinate vectors $e_i, e_j$ (for $V_{ij}$) and $e_i, e_j, e_k$ (for $V_{ijk}$): I do not like using the notation $x_i$ for coordinate vectors.

With these notation, your question becomes:

Suppose that $A\subset {\mathbb R}^n$, $n\ge 3$, is an open connected nonempty subset such that for each pair of distinct indices $i, j\in \{1,...,n\}$, there exists an element of order $8$ in $G_{ij}:=G(V_{ij})$ preserving $A$. Is it true that $A$ is either a ball or a spherical shell? I.e., is it true that either $A$ has the form $$ A=\{x: |x|< R\} $$
for some $R$, $0< R \le \infty$ or the form $$ A=\{x: r< |x|< R\} $$ for some $r, R$ satisfying $0\le r< R\le \infty$?

This question has positive answer. However, a proof requires some degree of comfort with the theory of Lie groups.

I will prove, in fact, more. Let $H=G_A$ denote the subgroup of $G$ consisting of elements preserving $A$. This subgroup is necessarily closed, since it is the stabilizer of the closed subset ${\mathbb R}^n \setminus A$ in $G$. Hence, $H$ is a compact Lie subgroup of $G$ (this is a special case of a theorem due to Cartan: closed subgroups of Lie groups are Lie subgroups).

Theorem. Suppose that $H\le G=SO(n), n\ge 3$, is a closed subgroup containing an element of order $8$ in each subgroup $G_{ij}$. Then $H=G$.

Proof. 1. Consider first the case $n=3$. Then, according to the classification of finite subgroups $\Phi$ of $SO(3)$, if $\Phi$ contains an element of order $8$, then $\Phi$ is either cyclic or dihedral and preserves a plane in ${\mathbb R}^3$. (The classification was discussed many times at MSE, see e.g. here.) Since we are assuming that $H\le SO(3)$ contains an order 8 rotation in each $G_{ij}< SO(3)$, such $H$ cannot preserve any plane: If $P$ were an invariant plane, one of the coordinate subspaces $V_{ij}$ would intersect $P$ along a line $L$. An order 8 rotation preserving $V_{ij}$ would send $L$ to another line $L'\subset V_{ij}$ different from $L$. Hence, $L'$ cannot be in $P$, which means that $P$ cannot be preserved by $H$.

Hence, such $H$ cannot be finite. Therefore, $H$ has positive dimension. Let $H_0\le H$ be the connected component of the identity in $H$, it is necessarily a normal subgroup of $H$. The subgroup $H_0$ has to have positive dimension (since its dimension equals that of $H$). It is an easy exercise to prove that the Lie algebra $o(3)$ contains no 2-dimensional subalgebras. Hence, $H_0$ has dimension 1 or 3. If $H_0$ is 3-dimensional, its Lie algebra is $o(3)$ (the Lie algebra of $SO(3)$). Since the exponential map for compact connected Lie groups is surjective, it follows that in this case $H_0=G$ and, thus, $H=G$. If $H_0$ is 1-dimensional, it is a subgroup of rotations $G_V$ for some plane $V\subset {\mathbb R}^3$. Since $H_0$ is normal in $H$, the invariant plane $V$ has to be invariant under $H$ as well, which contradicts our assumption about order 8 elements (see above). Thus, if $n=3$, then $H=G=SO(3)$ indeed.

  1. The general case. Consider a 3-dimensional subspace $V_{ijk}\subset {\mathbb R}^n$. Since $H\le G$ contains order 8 rotations in the subgroups $G_{ij}, G_{jk}, G_{ki}$, the subgroup of $H$ preserving $V_{ijk}$ has to be equal to $G_{ijk}$ according to Part 1. In particular, for each pair $i< j$, the group $H$ contains the orthogonal subgroup $G_{ij}< G=SO(n)$. This is what I will be using. Since $H$ is a closed subgroup of $G$, it is a Lie subgroup, let ${\mathfrak h}$ denote its Lie algebra, regarded as a subalgebra of $o(n)$. The algebra ${\mathfrak h}$ contains for each pair $i< j$ the commutative Lie subalgebra ${\mathfrak h}_{ij}$ equal to the Lie algebra of $G_{ij}$. In terms of matrices, ${\mathfrak h}_{ij}$ is generated by the "elementary skew-symmetric matrix" $E^{ij}$, where $E^{ij}$ has zero entries everywhere except at the positions $(ij), (ji)$: $$ E^{ij}_{ij}= 1, E^{ij}_{ji}= -1. $$ For instance, $$ E^{12}= \left[\begin{array}{ccccc} 0&1&0&\ldots&0\\ -1&0&0&\ldots&0\\ 0&0&0&\ldots&0\\ \vdots & \vdots &\vdots &\vdots &\vdots\\ 0&0&0&\ldots&0\end{array}\right]. $$ The matrices $E^{ij}, 1\le i<j\le n$, span the Lie algebra $o(n)$ as a vector space since $o(n)$ consists of skew-symmetric $n\times n$ real matrices: Each $M\in o(n)$ has entries $m_{ij}=-m_{ji}$ and, thus, $$ M= \sum_{i<j} m_{ij} E_{ij}. $$ Since $E^{ij}\in {\mathfrak h}$ for all $i<j$, it follows that ${\mathfrak h}= o(n)$ and, therefore, $H=SO(n)$. Theorem follows. qed

I can now finish the proof. Let $A\subset {\mathbb R}^n$ be an open subset as above. The subgroup $H$ of $SO(n)$ preserving $A$ has to equal $SO(n)$ by the theorem. Thus, for each $a\in A$, the domain $A$ contains the round sphere $S_a(0)$ centered at $0$ and of the radius $|a|$. Since $A$ is assumed to be open and connected, the set of radii $|a|$ as above, is an open connected subset $I$ in $[0,\infty)$. If $I$ has the form $[0, R)$, $R<\infty$, then $A$ is the open round ball of the radius $R$. If $I$ has the form $(r, R)$ then $A$ is a spherical shell. There are two more cases when $I$ is unbounded, corresponding to $A={\mathbb R}^n$ (if $I=[0,\infty)$) or $$ A= \{x: r<|x|\} $$ (if $I=(r,\infty)$). qed

Remark 1. In my answer I assumed that by a "rotation" you mean an element of $SO(n)$, i.e. a Euclidean rotation fixing the origin. If you allow more general rotations, the proof still goes through assuming that $A$ is bounded (and you made this assumption). Namely, if $H$ denotes the subgroup of $SE(n)$ (orientation-preserving Euclidean isometries) preserving $A$, then $H$ has to be a closed and bounded subgroup of $SE(n)$, hence, $H$ is compact. Every compact subgroup of $SE(n)$ fixes a point in ${\mathbb R}^n$. (To find a fixed point, take for instance the Chebyshev center of any orbit $Hv\subset {\mathbb R}^n$.) Changing the Cartesian coordinates so that this fixed point is the origin, reduces the problem to the one where $H\le SO(n)$. With more work, one can also handle the case of unbounded domains but I will not do this.

Remark 2. With a bit more work, one can prove that it suffices for $A$ to have an 8-fold rotational symmetry for each coordinate plane $V_{i,i+1}$, $i=1,...,n-1$. The proof is similar but one argues that the matrices $E^{i,i+1}$ generate $o(n)$ as a Lie algebra.

Moishe Kohan
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  • Thanks a lot for the exhaustive answer and nontrivial arguments! I'll need some time to understand several steps in the proof since I'm vaguely familiar with Lie groups, but it will be a good practice for me since the proof is quite detailed. I appreciate your help very much! – Voliar Aug 15 '20 at 21:13
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    @Voliar: You are welcome. Yes, knowing basics of Lie theory is quite useful for many areas of math, physics and engineering (MSE has several questions with textbook suggestions for the subject). Your question is a good example of how a geometry problem is, in fact, a Lie group problem in disguise: I cannot think of any solution which would avoid using Lie groups. The nontrivial ingredient is Cartan's theorem, everything else is essentially linear algebra (and much of Lie Theory is supped-up linear algebra). – Moishe Kohan Aug 15 '20 at 21:32