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I want to find sets of $N$ unit complex numbers $z_j = \exp(\rm{i}\phi_j)$ whose mean is close to zero, i.e., $c = \frac{1}{N}\sum_{j=1}^N z_j; |c|\leq t$, where $t\ll1$ is some threshold.

By unique, I mean that a global phase shift in $\phi_j$ doesn't matter, since it won't affect $c$. Also the permutation order is not important.

There are "obvious" ways to reach $c=0$, here are a couple:

  • Equally spaced points on a circle, $\phi_j = 2\pi j/M$, where $M=N$.
  • Fix $\phi$ by constraint such as $\{\phi_1,\phi_2,\phi_3,\phi_4,\phi_5\} = \{0,a,a,-a,-a\}$ with $a=\arccos{(-1/4)}$.

but there could also be other ways. For example, for $N=9$ and $M=11$ we can have phases $\{\phi_1,\phi_2,\phi_3,\phi_4,\phi_5,\phi_6,\phi_7,\phi_8,\phi_9\} = \{0,0,0,0,5,5,5,5,8\}(2\pi/11)$, where $|c|\approx0.015$.

For phases $\phi$ that are integer multiples of $2\pi /M$, one could try brute force. For example use the IntegerPartitions function in Mathematica to find all possible bin partitions of $N$ in $M$, then calculate the centroid by assigning a phase to each bin.

However, I am not a mathematician, and would like to know if more elegant approaches are known to exist, maybe based on groups for instance, which would provide deeper insight.

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  • $\begingroup$ You seem to have trouble formulating a coherent math question. What does it mean "what systematic way approach could find how many unique exist solutions"? This looks like it was written by some automated translation program. Consider writing in your native language. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 17 at 14:10
  • $\begingroup$ Question edited. Was not written by automated program, thanks! $\endgroup$
    – MichaelT
    Commented Oct 17 at 14:20
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    $\begingroup$ Related question, mathoverflow.net/questions/46068/… $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 17 at 22:21
  • $\begingroup$ Have you had a look at that link, Michael? $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 20 at 1:41
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    $\begingroup$ I did, it proved helpful, must admit that I'm not used to math language though. $\endgroup$
    – MichaelT
    Commented Oct 22 at 13:10

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Let me try to point you in the right direction. Let $M_N$ denote the quotient of the $N$-fold product $$ S^1\times ... \times S^1 $$ by the action of the group of rotation $SO(2)=S^1$: $$ (z_1,...,z_N)\mapsto (z z_1,..., z z_N). $$ Here and below, $S^1=\{z\in \mathbb C: |z|=1\}$.

In order to form this quotient, you can simply take the slice $\{z_1=1\}$. Then $M_N$ is the $N-1$-fold product of the circle $S^1$. You are interested in the subset $M_N(t)$ of $M_N$ consisting of configurations $(z_1,...,z_N)$ satisfying the inequality $$ \frac{1}{N}|z_1+z_2+...+z_N|\le t, $$ $0\le t<1$. Such spaces are actually well-studied from various viewpoints. One way to think of this is as the moduli space of $N+1$-gons in $\mathbb C$ with first $N$ sides of the unit length and the remaining side-length $\le tN$. (The points $z_k, k=1,...,N$ are directions of the edges of the polygon and the barycenter zero condition corresponds to the fact that we have a closed polygonal chain, i.e. a polygon. Considering the "moduli space" means that we consider polygons up rigid Euclidean motions: translations and rotations.) If $t=0$ then this is the moduli space of unit length $N$-gons in the plane. This space is a smooth compact connected manifold if $N$ is odd; if $N$ is even, then this space is "mostly" a manifold, but it has finitely many isolated quadratic singularities. Dimension of $M_N(t)$ is $N-3$. If $t>0$ then $M_N(t)$ is a smooth compact connected manifold with nonempty boundary; the manifold has dimension $N-2$.

Varying $t$ changes the space but does not alter its topology (as long as $0<t<1/N$), it is a consequence of some Morse-theoretic considerations. The space $M_N(t)$ deformation-retracts to $M_N(0)$. (I do not suppose you know what it means, but all basic algebraic topology invariants are the same for $M_N(0)$ and $M_N(t)$.) Here is how you can get configurations $(z_1,...,z_N)\in M_N(t)$:

Start with any $N$-tuple of points $z_1,...,z_N\in S^1$, such that at most $\lfloor N/2 \rfloor-1$ of these points are allowed to be the same. (For instance, choose $N$ distinct points in the unit circle.) Then there is a Moebius transformation $g$ of the unit disk in the complex plane, $$ g(z)= e^{i\theta} \frac{z-a}{1-\bar{a}z}, |a|<1 $$ such that the tuple $$ (w_1,...,w_N)= (g(z_1),...,g(z_N)) $$ satisfies the property that $w_1=1$ and $$ \sum_{k=1}^N w_k=0. $$ In other words, $(w_1,...,w_N)\in M_N(0)$. The way to find this $g$ is to take the conformal barycenter $a=C(\mu)\in \mathbb C$ of the measure $$ \mu=\sum_{k=1}^N \delta_{z_k}. $$ This conformal barycenter satisfies the inequality $|a|<1$. Then take $g$ as above. (You choose $\theta$ so that $w_1=1$ if it is important to you, otherwise, take $\theta=0$.) This is all pretty much contained in my papers with John Millson, [2] and [3].

There are ways to approximate the value of $a$ given the points $z_1,...,z_N$, see [1]. If you prefer to have a configuration $(w_1,...,w_N)\in M_N(t)$ which is not in $M_N(0)$, this is also easy to accomplish, just use $$ g(z)= e^{i\theta} \frac{z-b}{1-\bar{b}z}, $$ where $|b|<1$, $b$ is close to $a$ but is different from $a$. You can read more on this for instance in the references below. But the literature on this subject is vast, including papers of in topology, geometry, engineering, physics, etc. I no longer can keep track of this literature.

[1] Cantarella, Jason; Schumacher, Henrik, Computing the conformal barycenter, SIAM J. Appl. Algebra Geom. 6, No. 3, 503-530 (2022). ZBL1515.65051.

[2] Kapovich, Michael; Millson, John, On the moduli space of polygons in the Euclidean plane, J. Differ. Geom. 42, No. 1, 133-164 (1995). ZBL0847.51026.

[3] Kapovich, Michael; Millson, John J., The symplectic geometry of polygons in Euclidean space, J. Differ. Geom. 44, No. 3, 479-513 (1996). ZBL0889.58017.

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