Riesz Energy on the Torus: Regularity of Minimizers

Abstract: We study sets of $N$ points on the $d-$dimensional torus $\mathbb{T}^d$ minimizing interaction functionals of the type [ \sum_{i, j =1 \atop i \neq j}^{N}{ f(x_i - x_j)}. ] The main result states that for a class of functions $f$ that behave like Riesz energies $f(x) \sim |x|^{-s}$ for $0< s < d$, the minimizing configuration of points has optimal regularity w.r.t. a Fourier-analytic regularity measure that arises in the study of irregularities of distribution. A particular consequence is that they are optimal quadrature points in the space of trigonometric polynomials up to a certain degree. The proof extends to other settings and also covers less singular functions such as $f(x) = \exp\bigl(- N^{\frac{2}{d}} |x|^2 \bigr)$.