Elisabeth Werner, Case Western Reserve University
Affine invariants in convex geometry
In analogy to the classical surface area, a notion of affine surface area (invariant under affine transformations) has been defined. The isoperimetric inequality states that the usual surface area is minimized for a ball. Affine isoperimetric inequality states that affine surface area is maximized for ellipsoids. Due to this inequality and its many other remarkable properties, the affine surface area finds applications in many areas of mathematics and applied mathematics. This has led to intense research in recent years and numerous new directions have been developed. We will discuss some of them and we will show how affine surface area is related to a geometric object, that is interesting in its own right, the floating body.
MC 5501