English

Space vectors forming rational angles

Metric Geometry 2020-12-01 v1 Algebraic Geometry Number Theory

Abstract

We classify all sets of nonzero vectors in R3\mathbb{R}^3 such that the angle formed by each pair is a rational multiple of π\pi. The special case of four-element subsets lets us classify all tetrahedra whose dihedral angles are multiples of π\pi, solving a 1976 problem of Conway and Jones: there are 22 one-parameter families and 5959 sporadic tetrahedra, all but three of which are related to either the icosidodecahedron or the B3B_3 root lattice. The proof requires the solution in roots of unity of a W(D6)W(D_6)-symmetric polynomial equation with 105105 monomials (the previous record was 1212 monomials).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2011.14232,
  title  = {Space vectors forming rational angles},
  author = {Kiran S. Kedlaya and Alexander Kolpakov and Bjorn Poonen and Michael Rubinstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.14232},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

30 pages. Associated code at https://github.com/kedlaya/tetrahedra