Mixed volumes and the Bochner method

Abstract

At the heart of convex geometry lies the observation that the volume of convex bodies behaves as a polynomial. Many geometric inequalities may be expressed in terms of the coefficients of this polynomial, called mixed volumes. Among the deepest results of this theory is the Alexandrov-Fenchel inequality, which subsumes many known inequalities as special cases. The aim of this note is to give new proofs of the Alexandrov-Fenchel inequality and of its matrix counterpart, Alexandrov’s inequality for mixed discriminants, that appear conceptually and technically simpler than earlier proofs and clarify the underlying structure. Our main observation is that these inequalities can be reduced by the spectral theorem to certain trivial “Bochner formulas”.