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arXiv · 2211.15847

A counterexample to the periodic tiling conjecture

Rachel Greenfeld·Terence Tao
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Abstract

The periodic tiling conjecture asserts that any finite subset of a lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$ which tiles that lattice by translations, in fact tiles periodically. In this work we disprove this conjecture for sufficiently large $d$, which also implies a disproof of the corresponding conjecture for Euclidean spaces $\mathbb{R}^d$. In fact, we also obtain a counterexample in a group of the form $\mathbb{Z}^2 \times G_0$ for some finite abelian $2$-group $G_0$. Our methods rely on encoding a "Sudoku puzzle" whose rows and other non-horizontal lines are constrained to lie in a certain class of "$2$-adically structured functions," in terms of certain functional equations that can be encoded in turn as a single tiling equation, and then demonstrating that solutions to this Sudoku puzzle exist, but are all non-periodic.

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Rachel Greenfeld, Terence Tao. 2022-11-29. A counterexample to the periodic tiling conjecture. https://doi.org/10.4007/annals.2024.200.1.5

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