Random infinite squarings of rectangles

Abstract

A recent preprint (arXiv:1402.2632) introduced a growth procedure for planar maps, whose almost sure limit is "the uniform infinite 3-connected planar map". A classical construction of Brooks, Smith, Stone and Tutte (1940) associates a squaring of a rectangle (i.e. a tiling of a rectangle by squares) to any to finite, edge-rooted planar map with non-separating root edge. We use this construction together with the map growth procedure to define a growing sequence of squarings of rectangles. We prove the sequence of squarings converges to an almost sure limit: a random infinite squaring of a finite rectangle. This provides a canonical planar embedding of the uniform infinite 3-connected planar map. We also show that the limiting random squaring almost surely has a unique point of accumulation.