arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Thomas Fernique.
Compact packings are specific packings of spheres which can be seen as tilings and are good candidates to maximize the density. We show that the compact packings of the Euclidean space with two sizes of spheres are exactly those obtained by filling with smaller spheres the octahedral holes of a close-packing of equal spheres.
We give a necessary and sufficient condition on a $d$-dimensional affine subspace of $\mathbb{R}^n$ to be characterized by a finite set of patterns which are forbidden to appear in its digitization. This can also be stated in terms of local rules for canonical projection tilings, or subshift of finite type. This provides a link between algebraic properties of affine subspaces and combinatorics of their digitizations. The condition relies on the notion of {\em coincidence} and can be effectively checked. As a corollary, we get that only algebraic subspaces can be characterized by patterns.
Discs form a compact packing of the plane if they are interior disjoint and the graph which connects the center of mutually tangent discs is triangulated. There is only one compact packing by discs all of the same size, called hexagonal compact packing. It has been previously proven that there are exactly $9$ values of $r$ such that there exists a compact packing with discs of radius $1$ and $r$. This paper shows that there are exactly $164$ pairs $(r,s)$ such that there exists a compact packing with discs of radius $1$, $r$ and $s$. In all these $164$ cases, there exists a periodic packing.
Short proof of the aperiodicity of the Robinson tile set.
A linear subspace $E$ of $\mathbb{R}^n$ has colored local rules if there exists a finite set of decorated tiles whose tilings are digitizations of $E$. The local rules are weak if the digitizations can slightly wander around $E$. We prove that a linear subspace has weak colored local rules if and only if it is computable. This goes beyond the previous results, all based on algebraic subspaces. We prove an analogous characterization for sets of linear subspaces, including the set of all the linear subspaces of $\mathbb{R}^n$.
We provide an effective characterization of the planar octagonal tilings which admit weak local rules. As a corollary, we show that they are all based on quadratic irrationalities, as conjectured by Thang Le in the 90s.
Icosahedral tilings, although non-periodic, are known to be characterized by their configurations of some finite size. This characterization has also been expressed in terms of a simple alternation condition. We provide an alternative proof - shorter and arguably easier - of this fact. We moreover conjecture that the alternation condition can be weakened.
Dual maps have been introduced as a generalization to higher dimensions of word substitutions and free group morphisms. In this paper, we study the action of these dual maps on particular discrete planes and surfaces -- namely stepped planes and stepped surfaces. We show that dual maps can be seen as discretizations of toral automorphisms. We then provide a connection between stepped planes and the Brun multi-dimensional continued fraction algorithm, based on a desubstitution process defined on local geometric configurations of stepped planes. By extending this connection to stepped surfaces, we obtain an effective characterization of stepped planes (more exactly, stepped quasi-planes) among stepped surfaces.
On the one hand, Socolar showed in 1990 that the n-fold planar tilings admit weak local rules when n is not divisible by 4 (the n=10 case corresponds to the Penrose tilings and is known since 1974). On the other hand, Burkov showed in 1988 that the 8-fold tilings do not admit weak local rules, and Le showed the same for the 12-fold tilings (unpublished). We here show that this is actually the case for all the 4p-fold tilings.
Aperiodic tilings are non-periodic tilings defined by local rules. They are widely used to model quasicrystals, and a central question is to understand which of the non-periodic tilings are actually aperiodic. Among tilings, those by rhombi can be easily seen as approximations of surfaces in higher dimensional spaces. In particular, those which approximate irrational planes are non-periodic. But which ones are also aperiodic? This paper introduces the notion of subperiod, which links algebraic properties of a plane with geometric properties of the tilings that approximate it. A necessary and sufficient condition is obtained for tilings that can be seen in the four dimensional Euclidean space. This result is then applied to some examples in higher codimensions, notably tilings with n-fold rotational symmetry.
This paper introduces two tiles whose tilings form a one-parameter family of tilings which can all be seen as digitization of two-dimensional planes in the four-dimensional Euclidean space. This family contains the Ammann-Beenker tilings as the solution of a simple optimization problem.
Aperiodic tilings are non-periodic tilings characterized by local constraints. They play a key role in the proof of the undecidability of the domino problem (1964) and naturally model quasicrystals (discovered in 1982). A central question is to characterize, among a class of non-periodic tilings, the aperiodic ones. In this paper, we answer this question for the well-studied class of non-periodic tilings obtained by digitizing irrational vector spaces. Namely, we prove that such tilings are aperiodic if and only if the digitized vector spaces are computable.
This paper introduces a Markov process inspired by the problem of quasicrystal growth. It acts over dimer tilings of the triangular grid by randomly performing local transformations, called {\em flips}, which do not increase the number of identical adjacent tiles (this number can be thought as the tiling energy). Fixed-points of such a process play the role of quasicrystals. We are here interested in the worst-case expected number of flips to converge towards a fixed-point. Numerical experiments suggest a bound quadratic in the number n of tiles of the tiling. We prove a O(n^2.5) upper bound and discuss the gap between this bound and the previous one. We also briefly discuss the average-case.
A combinatorial substitution is a map over tilings which allows to define sets of tilings with a strong hierarchical structure. In this paper, we show that such sets of tilings are sofic, that is, can be enforced by finitely many local constraints. This extends some similar previous results (Mozes'90, Goodman-Strauss'98) in a much shorter presentation.
The rhombus tilings of a simply connected domain of the Euclidean plane are known to form a flip-connected space (a flip is the elementary operation on rhombus tilings which rotates 180° a hexagon made of three rhombi). Motivated by the study of a quasicrystal growth model, we are here interested in better understanding how "tight" rhombus tiling spaces are flip-connected. We introduce a lower bound (Hamming-distance) on the minimal number of flips to link two tilings (flip-distance), and we investigate whether it is sharp. The answer depends on the number n of different edge directions in the tiling: positive for n=3 (dimer tilings) or n=4 (octogonal tilings), but possibly negative for n=5 (decagonal tilings) or greater values of n. A standard proof is provided for the n=3 and n=4 cases, while the complexity of the n=5 case led to a computer-assisted proof (whose main result can however be easily checked by hand).
This paper introduces a simple Markov process inspired by the problem of quasicrystal growth. It acts over two-letter words by randomly performing \emph{flips}, a local transformation which exchanges two consecutive different letters. More precisely, only the flips which do not increase the number of pairs of consecutive identical letters are allowed. Fixed-points of such a process thus perfectly alternate different letters. We show that the expected number of flips to converge towards a fixed-point is bounded by $O(n^3)$ in the worst-case and by $O(n^{5/2}\ln{n})$ in the average-case, where $n$ denotes the length of the initial word.