On the volume of sections of the cube

Abstract

We study the properties of the maximal volume k-dimensional sections of the n-dimensional cube [−1, 1]n. We obtain a first order necessary condition for a k-dimensional subspace to be a local maximizer of the volume of such sections, which we formulate in a geometric way. We estimate the length of the projection of a vector of the standard basis of Rn onto a k-dimensional subspace that maximizes the volume of the intersection. We find the optimal upper bound on the volume of a planar section of the cube [−1, 1]n, n ≥ 2.