Identifying Steiner Minimal Trees on Four Points in Space

Abstract

A Steiner minimal tree is a network with minimum length spanning a given set of points in space. There are several criteria for identifying the Steiner minimal tree on four points in the Euclidean plane. However, it has been proved that the length of the Steiner minimal tree on four points cannot be computed using radicals if the four points lie in Euclidean space. This unsolvability implies that it is unlikely that similar necessary and sufficient conditions exist in the spatial case. Hence, a problem arises: Is it possible to generalize the known planar criteria to space in the sense that they are sufficient to identify Steiner minimal trees on four points in space? This problem is investi..