English

An aperiodic tile with edge-to-edge orientational matching rules

Metric Geometry 2021-10-19 v2 Combinatorics Dynamical Systems

Abstract

We present a single, connected tile which can tile the plane but only non-periodically. The tile is hexagonal with edge markings, which impose simple rules as to how adjacent tiles are allowed to meet across edges. The first of these rules is a standard matching rule, that certain decorations match across edges. The second condition is a new type of matching rule, which allows tiles to meet only when certain decorations in a particular orientation are given the opposite charge. This forces the tiles to form a hierarchy of triangles, following a central idea of the Socolar--Taylor tilings. However, the new edge-to-edge orientational matching rule forces this structure in a very different way, which allows for a surprisingly simple proof of aperiodicity. We show that the hull of all tilings satisfying our rules is uniquely ergodic and that almost all tilings in the hull belong to a minimal core of tilings generated by substitution. Identifying tilings which are charge-flips of each other, these tilings are shown to have pure point dynamical spectrum and a regular model set structure.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.10139,
  title  = {An aperiodic tile with edge-to-edge orientational matching rules},
  author = {James J. Walton and Michael F. Whittaker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.10139},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

To appear in J. Inst. Math. Jussieu (open access)

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:28:50.190Z