A Note On Characterizations of Spherical t-Designs

Abstract: A set ${X}{N}={x_1,\ldots,x_N}$ of $N$ points on the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^d,\,d\geq 2$ is a spherical $t$-design if the average of any polynomial of degree at most $t$ over the sphere is equal to the average value of the polynomial over ${X}{N}$. This paper extends characterizations of spherical $t$-designs in previous paper from $\mathbb{S}^2$ to general $\mathbb{S}^d$. We show that for $N\geq\dim(\mathbb{P}{t+1})$, $X_N$ is a stationary point set of a certain non-negative quantity $A{N,\,t}$ and a fundamental system for polynomial space over $\mathbb{S}^d$ with degree at most $t$, then $X_N$ is a spherical $t$-design. In contrast, we present that with $N \geq \dim( \mathbb{P}{t})$, a fundamental system $X_N$ is a spherical $t$-design if and only if non-negative quantity $D{N,\,t}$ vanishes. In addition, the still unanswered questions about construction of spherical $t$-designs are discussed.