Do $4$ balanced points on a sphere form a tetrahedron or lie on a plane

combinatorial-geometryeuclidean-geometrygeometryspherical-geometrysymmetry

Let $\mathbb{S}^2$ be the unit sphere in $\mathbb{R}^3$, and let $x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4 \in \mathbb{S}^2$.

Suppose that $\sum_i x_i=0$, where we sum the vectors in $\mathbb{R}^3$.

Question: Does one of the following two options hold?

  1. The $x_i$ form a regular tetrahedron.
  2. The $x_i$ lie on a great circle in $\mathbb{S}^2$. (In that case, they must in fact form a rectangle).

Motivation:

"Balanced configurations" $x_i \in \mathbb{S}^2$ satisfying $\sum_i x_i=0$, coincide with the maximizes of the the total squared distance energy
$$
E(x_i)=\sum_{i < j}\| x_i – x_j \|^2,
$$

where $\| x_i – x_j \|$ denotes the Euclidean distance in $\mathbb{R}^3$.


It turns out that the set of such balanced configurations form a $5$-dimensional submanifold of $(\mathbb{S}^2)^4$, as it is the inverse image of the regular value zero, of the map $(x_i) \to \sum_i x_i$.

Best Answer

Consider these four points:

$$ (0.8,0.6,0) \\ (0.8,-0.6,0) \\ (-0.8,0,0.6) \\ (-0.8,0,-0.6) $$