On extremal point distributions in the Euclidean plane

We ask for the maximum σ _n ^γ of Σ _i,j=1 ⁿ ‖x _i-x _j‖^γ, where x ₁,χ,x _n are points in the Euclidean plane R ² with ‖x_i-x_j‖ ≦1 for all 1≦ i,j ≦ n and where ‖.‖^γ denotes the γ-th power of the Euclidean norm, γ ≧ 1. (For γ =1 this question was stated by L. Fejes Tóth in [1].) We calculate the exact value of σ _n ^γ for all γ γ 1,0758χ and give the distributions which attain the maximum σ _n ^γ . Moreover we prove upper bounds for σ _n ^γ for all γ ≧ 1 and calculate the exact value of σ ₄ ^γ for all γ ≧ 1. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.