Wachpress Conjecture Restricted To Arrangements Of Three Conics

Abstract

This thesis discusses Wachpress conjecture restricted to arrangements of three conics. Wachpress conjectured the existence of a set of barycentric coordinates, namely Wachpress coordinates, on all polycons. Barycentric coordinates are very useful in many different fields as they can be used to define a finite element approximation scheme with linear precision. This thesis focuses on the conjecture on the real projective plane. The polycons of lowest degree for which the conjecture has not been proven completely yet are those which arise from arrangements of three conics. We state the current knowledge on the veracity of the conjecture on the polycons of this family. Throughout the thesis we view real rational polycons as positive geometries which encode both differential and algebraic properties in their unique canonical form.