Related papers: A computer verification of the Kepler conjecture
We provide a tight result for a fundamental problem arising from packing disks into a circular container: The critical density of packing disks in a disk is 0.5. This implies that any set of (not necessarily equal) disks of total area…
The "Mahler volume" is, intuitively speaking, a measure of how "round" a centrally symmetric convex body is. In one direction this intuition is given weight by a result of Santalo, who in the 1940s showed that the Mahler volume is…
As the main problem, we consider covering of a $d$-dimensional cube by $n$ balls with reasonably large $d$ (10 or more) and reasonably small $n$, like $n=100$ or $n=1000$. We do not require the full coverage but only 90\% or 95\% coverage.…
An earlier paper describes a program to prove the Kepler conjecture on sphere packings. This paper carries out the second step of that program. A sphere packing leads to a decomposition of $R^3$ into polyhedra. The polyhedra are divided…
We perform a rigorous study of the identical sphere packing problem in $\mathbb{Z}^3$ and of phase transitions in the corresponding hard-core model. The sphere diameter $D>0$ and the fugacity $u\gg 1$ are the varying parameters of the…
A new locally averaged density for sphere packing in R^3 is defined by a proper combination of the local cell (Voronoi cell) and Delaunay decompositions (\S 1.2.2), using only a single layer of surrounding spheres. Local packings attaining…
We provide a tight result for a fundamental problem arising from packing squares into a circular container: The critical density of packing squares into a disk is $\delta=\frac{8}{5\pi}\approx 0.509$. This implies that any set of (not…
Packing problems have been of great interest in many diverse contexts for many centuries. The optimal packing of identical objects has been often invoked to understand the nature of low temperature phases of matter. In celebrated work,…
The Kneser--Poulsen conjecture asserts that the volume of a union of balls in Euclidean space cannot be increased by bringing their centres pairwise closer. We prove that its natural information-theoretic counterpart is true. This follows…
We prove that the highest density of non-overlapping translates of a given centrally symmetric convex domain relative to its outer parallel domain of given outer radius is attained by a lattice packing in the Euclidean plane. This…
Dense hard-particle packings are intimately related to the structure of low-temperature phases of matter and are useful models of heterogeneous materials and granular media. Most studies of the densest packings in three dimensions have…
We consider the problem of packing congruent circles with the maximum radius in a unit square as a mathematical optimization problem. Due to the presence of non-overlapping constraints, this problem is a notoriously difficult nonconvex…
In an Euclidean $d$-space, the container problem asks to pack $n$ equally sized spheres into a minimal dilate of a fixed container. If the container is a smooth convex body and $d\geq 2$ we show that solutions to the container problem can…
We consider the problem of minimizing a continuous function f over a compact set K. We analyze a hierarchy of upper bounds proposed by Lasserre in [SIAM J. Optim. 21(3) (2011), pp. 864--885], obtained by searching for an optimal probability…
We describe a program to prove the Kepler conjecture on sphere packings. We then carry out the first step of this program. Each packing determines a decomposition of space into Delaunay simplices, which are grouped together into finite…
It was conjectured by Ulam that the ball has the lowest optimal packing fraction out of all convex, three-dimensional solids. Here we prove that any origin-symmetric convex solid of sufficiently small asphericity can be packed at a higher…
In this paper, we study the problem of hyperball (hypersphere) packings in $n$-dimensional hyperbolic space ($n \ge 4$). We prove that to each $n$-dimensional congruent saturated hyperball packing, there is an algorithm to obtain a…
The present work surveys problems in $n$-dimensional space with $n$ large. Early development in the study of packing and covering in high dimensions was motivated by the geometry of numbers. Subsequent results, such as the discovery of the…
In 1967, Moon and Moser proved a tight bound on the critical density of squares in squares: any set of squares with a total area of at most 1/2 can be packed into a unit square, which is tight. The proof requires full knowledge of the set,…
In 1993 Foisy et al. proved that the optimal Euclidean planar double bubble---the least-perimeter way to enclose and separate two given areas---is three circular arcs meeting at 120 degrees. We consider the plane with density $r^p$, joining…