Mesh ratios for best-packing and limits of minimal energy configurations

For $N$-point best-packing configurations $omega_N$ on a compact metric space $(A,rho)$, we obtain estimates for the mesh-separation ratio $gamma(omega_N,A)$, which is the quotient of the covering radius of $omega_N$ relative to $A$ and the minimum pairwise distance between points in $omega_N$. For best-packing configurations $omega_N$ that arise as limits of minimal Riesz $s$-energy configurations as $sto infty$, we prove that $gamma(omega_N,A)le 1$ and this bound can be attained even for the sphere. In the particular case when N=5 on $S^2$ with $rho$ the Euclidean metric, we prove our main result that among the infinitely many 5-point best-packing configurations there is a unique configuration, namely a square-base pyramid $omega_5^*$, that is the limit (as $sto infty$) of 5-point $s$-energy minimizing configurations. Moreover, $gamma(omega_5^*,S^2)=1$.