Mixed Christoffel-Minkowski Problem
- Mixed Christoffel-Minkowski problem is an inverse problem in convex geometry that prescribes mixed area or curvature measures to recover a convex body through support functions.
- It integrates methods from Brunn–Minkowski theory, elliptic and parabolic PDEs, and mixed volume techniques to establish existence, uniqueness, and regularity of solutions.
- Key challenges include handling nonlinear and linear PDE formulations under symmetry reductions, with extensions to Lp, dual, and variational frameworks.
The mixed Christoffel–Minkowski problem denotes a family of inverse problems in convex geometry in which one prescribes a mixed area measure, or an equivalent curvature density on the sphere, and seeks a convex body realizing that datum. In the formulations represented by recent work, the problem includes prescribing with all but one reference body fixed, prescribing repeated mixed area measures , and solving support-function equations involving combinations of the elementary symmetric functions of (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Ivaki, 2023). The subject links Brunn–Minkowski theory, elliptic and parabolic PDE, mixed volumes, and rigidity theory; the central questions are existence, uniqueness, regularity, and whether an analytic solution is geometric, i.e. whether it is the support function of a convex body.
1. Geometric formulations and basic objects
A standard formulation fixes convex bodies and considers the mixed area measure
characterized by the polarization identity
for every convex body . In the anisotropic Christoffel problem one fixes and asks for necessary and sufficient conditions on a finite Borel measure so that
for some convex body 0 (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025).
A closely related notation repeats one free body several times. For 1 and fixed bodies 2, one writes
3
with 4 appearing 5 times. The corresponding problem is to characterize those Borel measures 6 that can be represented as
7
for some convex 8 (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025).
In support-function language, if 9 is smooth and strictly convex, its support function is
0
and the matrix
1
has eigenvalues equal to the principal radii of curvature. Writing 2 for the 3-th elementary symmetric function, the classical 4-th Christoffel–Minkowski problem prescribes 5, while mixed variants prescribe combinations of the 6 or more general weighted measures (Guan et al., 2019).
The literature represented here uses the phrase “mixed Christoffel–Minkowski problem” in several adjacent senses. One sense is the mixed area-measure problem with fixed reference bodies (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Colesanti et al., 9 Dec 2025). Another is the prescribed mixed curvature equation
7
which becomes a support-function PDE (Guan et al., 2019). A third consists of 8, dual, and 9 variants that mix area measures with dual curvature measures or related geometric measures (Chen et al., 2020, Chen et al., 2022, Cabezas-Moreno et al., 7 Apr 2025).
2. Support-function equations and PDE reductions
On the sphere, a function 0 determines the hypersurface
1
and the spherical Hessian
2
encodes the principal radii of curvature. Guan and Zhang study the general equation
3
with 4 and 5. When 6 and 7, this becomes the mixed Christoffel–Minkowski equation
8
which prescribes a convex combination of area measures (Guan et al., 2019).
Ivaki studies a non-homogeneous isotropic mixed Christoffel–Minkowski type operator
9
where 0 and at least two coefficients are strictly positive. The prescribed equation is
1
When 2 and 3, this is exactly the classical mixed Christoffel–Minkowski problem posed by Firey and Schneider in the 1970’s (Ivaki, 2023).
For fixed reference bodies of class 4, the mixed area-measure problem can also reduce to a linear elliptic PDE. If 5 are fixed and 6 is the support function of the unknown body 7, then the mixed area density is
8
where 9 is the mixed discriminant and 0. By linearity in the last slot there is a positive-definite coefficient matrix 1 such that
2
Thus the mixed Christoffel problem becomes a linear uniformly elliptic equation on 3, with the geometric issue shifted to proving that 4 (Colesanti et al., 9 Dec 2025).
These PDE reductions clarify an important structural distinction. In the fixed-reference-body formulation, the unknown support function enters linearly through the mixed discriminant polarization (Colesanti et al., 9 Dec 2025). In isotropic or mixed-curvature prescriptions, the equation is fully nonlinear in the eigenvalues of 5 (Ivaki, 2023, Guan et al., 2019).
3. Existence, admissibility, and regularity
For the fully nonlinear curvature equation on 6, Guan and Zhang prove a global existence theorem under group invariance. If 7, 8, and a group 9 acts without fixed points with 0 1-invariant, then there exists an admissible solution
2
of the curvature equation, unique up to adding first spherical harmonics. The proof combines ellipticity and concavity of
3
in 4, 5 and 6 estimates, Evans–Krylov, and a degree-theoretic homotopy argument (Guan et al., 2019).
For the fixed-body mixed Christoffel problem in the 7 category, Colesanti–Focardi–Guan–Salani first solve the linear elliptic equation
8
modulo linear functions, assuming
9
They then prove a constant-rank theorem: if 0 is positive-definite and the mixed concavity condition (3.7) holds, any 1 solution with 2 has constant rank, and on the full sphere this forces rank 3, hence 4. Under the additional condition that the 5-homogeneous extension of 6 to 7 is convex, Theorem 3.4 yields a unique, up to translation, 8 convex body solving the mixed problem (Colesanti et al., 9 Dec 2025).
The role of admissibility is central throughout. In Guan–Zhang, admissibility means 9, which is enough for ellipticity and concavity of the operator but does not automatically imply full convexity 0. The paper explicitly identifies the extension of constant-rank arguments from the homogeneous 1 case to inhomogeneous sums 2 as an open but promising problem for obtaining genuine convex solutions of the mixed Christoffel–Minkowski problem (Guan et al., 2019).
Regularity theory depends on the formulation. In the global sphere problem, 3 follows from uniform ellipticity and concavity, and higher regularity follows from Schauder theory (Guan et al., 2019). In the linear mixed-Christoffel reduction, 4 follows from standard elliptic theory once 5 (Colesanti et al., 9 Dec 2025). In weak and non-smooth symmetry-reduced settings, the natural output is instead convex Aleksandrov solutions or continuous support functions, with smoothness neither assumed nor required (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Mussnig et al., 15 Aug 2025).
4. Uniqueness, rigidity, and the Firey question
A major rigidity result is Ivaki’s even isotropic uniqueness theorem. Let
6
where 7 is 8, at least two 9 are positive, and 0 is even and strictly convex. If
1
and
2
where 3, then 4 is constant, hence the solution is the support function of an origin-centred sphere (Ivaki, 2023).
In the special isotropic case 5 and 6, this answers Firey’s 1974 question in the even isotropic regime: if a nonnegative linear combination of isotropic kinematic measures is proportional to surface area measure, then among origin-centred even strictly convex bodies the only solution is the sphere (Ivaki, 2023). The proof uses the Heintze–Karcher inequality. For a closed convex hypersurface 7 with mean curvature 8,
9
with equality if and only if 00 is a round sphere. In support-function form, testing the equation
01
against 02 and integrating by parts, together with the sign conditions on 03, forces equality in Heintze–Karcher and therefore spherical rigidity (Ivaki, 2023).
Immediate corollaries include uniqueness for the isotropic Orlicz–Minkowski problem under 04, 05, with at least one strict inequality, and for the isotropic 06-Gaussian–Minkowski problem
07
for which every smooth strictly convex solution is a sphere (Ivaki, 2023).
The uniqueness statements in the broader literature are more varied. For fixed reference bodies, uniqueness is often only up to translation, reflecting invariance of area measures under translation (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Colesanti et al., 9 Dec 2025). In some 08 or 09 settings, uniqueness is up to dilation when 10 (Chen et al., 2020). The literature therefore distinguishes translation-invariant inverse problems from rigidity results that force the recovered body to be spherical under isotropic and symmetry assumptions.
5. Symmetry-reduced complete solutions
A complete solution is available in several symmetry classes. In the disk-area-measure problem, Brauner–Hofstätter–Ortega-Moreno fix the 11-dimensional disk
12
and study measures of the form 13. If 14 is a nonnegative, centered, finite Borel measure on 15 with 16, then there exists 17 with
18
if and only if: 19 is absolutely continuous with respect to rotation-invariant measure on the Grassmannian with continuous density; for almost every 20, the conditional measure 21 on 22 is centered; and there exists a continuous support function 23 satisfying the integral equation
24
When these conditions hold, 25 is unique up to translation. The proof reduces the 26-dimensional problem to planar Christoffel problems on the circles 27 by disintegration and a Kubota-type projection formula (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025).
Under axial symmetry, Brauner–Hofstätter–Ortega-Moreno obtain a complete solution without assuming regularity. If all bodies involved are symmetric about a common axis 28, then for a centered zonal measure 29 the existence of a body of revolution 30 with
31
is equivalent to five conditions: a support condition, non-degeneracy, positivity of a transferred measure on the interval 32, finiteness of two boundary ratios, and an equator-mass condition. In that case the solution is unique up to vertical translation. The argument uses a one-dimensional integral operator 33 associated with the profile functions 34, the semigroup identity 35, inversion of the adjoint transform, and reconstruction from planar sections (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025).
In a more explicit rotationally symmetric setting, Mussnig–Ulivelli characterize the classical 36-th area-measure problem for bodies of revolution by moment quotients
37
For a finite, centered, 38-invariant Borel measure 39, there exists a body of revolution 40 with 41 and 42 of positive radius if and only if 43 and 44 are non-trivial and non-decreasing. The associated radial convex functions are given explicitly by
45
and, after convex conjugation and gluing, one obtains an explicit three-piece formula for the support function on the sphere (Mussnig et al., 15 Aug 2025).
These symmetry reductions show that the mixed Christoffel–Minkowski problem can change character dramatically under invariance assumptions. In the general case, the problem may require nonlinear elliptic estimates or geometric admissibility theorems; in the rotationally symmetric case, it can reduce to one-dimensional monotonicity conditions or to compatible families of planar Christoffel problems (Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Brauner et al., 13 Aug 2025, Mussnig et al., 15 Aug 2025).
6. 46, dual, and variational extensions
Several recent works extend the mixed Christoffel–Minkowski problem beyond mixed area measures. Chen–Cui–Zhao introduce the 47-th 48-mixed curvature measure
49
and pose the problem of finding 50 such that 51. For a smooth positive density 52, the equation is
53
When 54, a normalized expanding flow
55
has a unique smooth solution for all 56, and a subsequence converges in 57 to a limit solving the elliptic equation. The same paper proves uniqueness for smooth solutions when 58 by a comparison of the ratio 59 (Chen et al., 2022).
A different extension is based on 60-dual mixed curvature measures. For 61, 62, and 63, one defines
64
and asks for 65 such that
66
The associated variational object is the 67-mixed quermassintegral 68, obtained as the first variation of 69. The existence theory is formulated as a maximization problem for
70
The only genuine obstruction to existence is that 71 must not charge any closed hemisphere; in the even case, 72 must not concentrate on any great subsphere. Under these hypotheses one has existence, and for 73 one has full uniqueness, while for 74 uniqueness holds modulo dilation (Chen et al., 2020).
The 75 dual Christoffel–Minkowski problem studied in (Cabezas-Moreno et al., 7 Apr 2025) prescribes a measure that mixes the 76-th area measure and the 77-th dual curvature measure. In PDE form,
78
For 79, 80, 81 even, and
82
there exists at least one even, smooth, strictly convex solution. The proof combines 83, gradient, non-collapse, full-rank, and 84 estimates with Leray–Schauder degree theory. In the isotropic case 85, the paper also proves spherical uniqueness under additional relations between 86 (Cabezas-Moreno et al., 7 Apr 2025).
These extensions preserve the basic Christoffel–Minkowski pattern—recovering a convex body from a prescribed spherical measure—but replace the classical area measure by mixed, dual, or 87-weighted analogues. They also show that no single method dominates the field: degree theory, curvature flows, variational maximization, constant-rank arguments, Kubota-type formulas, and sharp inequalities all appear as primary tools, depending on the geometric measure being prescribed (Guan et al., 2019, Chen et al., 2022, Chen et al., 2020, Cabezas-Moreno et al., 7 Apr 2025).