Riesz Polarization Inequalities in Higher Dimensions

We derive bounds and asymptotics for the maximum Riesz polarization quantity $$M_n^p(A) := \max_{{\bold x}_1, {\bold x}_2, \ldots, {\bold x}_n \in A} {\min_{{\bold x} \in A}{\sum_{j=1}^n{\frac{1}{|{\bold x} - {\bold x}_j|^{p}}}}}$$ (which is $n$ times the Chebyshev constant) for quite general sets $A \subset {\Bbb R}^m$ with special focus on the unit sphere and unit ball. We combine elementary averaging arguments with potential theoretic tools to formulate and prove our results. We also give a discrete version of the recent result of Hardin, Kendall, and Saff which solves the Riesz polarization problem for the case when $A$ is the unit circle and $p>0,$ as well as provide an independent proof of their result for $p=4$ that exploits classical polynomial inequalities and yields new estimates. Furthermore, we raise some challenging conjectures.