English

The structure of translational tilings in $\mathbb{Z}^d$

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2021-09-27 v3 Combinatorics Dynamical Systems Number Theory

Abstract

We obtain structural results on translational tilings of periodic functions in Zd\mathbb{Z}^d by finite tiles. In particular, we show that any level one tiling of a periodic set in Z2\mathbb{Z}^2 must be weakly periodic (the disjoint union of sets that are individually periodic in one direction), but present a counterexample of a higher level tiling of Z2\mathbb{Z}^2 that fails to be weakly periodic. We also establish a quantitative version of the two-dimensional periodic tiling conjecture which asserts that any finite tile in Z2\mathbb{Z}^2 that admits a tiling, must admit a periodic tiling, by providing a polynomial bound on the period; this also gives an exponential-type bound on the computational complexity of the problem of deciding whether a given finite subset of Z2\mathbb{Z}^2 tiles or not. As a byproduct of our structural theory, we also obtain an explicit formula for a universal period for all tilings of a one-dimensional tile.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2010.03254,
  title  = {The structure of translational tilings in $\mathbb{Z}^d$},
  author = {Rachel Greenfeld and Terence Tao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.03254},
  year   = {2021}
}