English

Radial Density in Apollonian Packings

Number Theory 2014-11-25 v2

Abstract

Given an Apollonian Circle Packing P\mathcal{P} and a circle C0=B(z0,r0)C_0 = \partial B(z_0, r_0) in P\mathcal{P}, color the set of disks in P\mathcal{P} tangent to C0C_0 red. What proportion of the concentric circle Cϵ=B(z0,r0+ϵ)C_{\epsilon} = \partial B(z_0, r_0 + \epsilon) is red, and what is the behavior of this quantity as ϵ0\epsilon \rightarrow 0? Using equidistribution of closed horocycles on the modular surface H2/SL(2,Z)\mathbb{H}^2/SL(2, \mathbb{Z}), we show that the answer is 3π=0.9549\frac{3}{\pi} = 0.9549\dots We also describe an observation due to Alex Kontorovich connecting the rate of this convergence in the Farey-Ford packing to the Riemann Hypothesis. For the analogous problem for Soddy Sphere packings, we find that the limiting radial density is 32VT=0.853\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2V_T}=0.853\dots, where VTV_T denotes the volume of an ideal hyperbolic tetrahedron with dihedral angles π/3\pi/3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1409.6352,
  title  = {Radial Density in Apollonian Packings},
  author = {Jayadev S. Athreya and Cristian Cobeli and Alexandru Zaharescu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1409.6352},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

New section based on an observation due to Alex Kontorovich connecting the rate of this convergence in the Farey-Ford packing to the Riemann Hypothesis

R2 v1 2026-06-22T06:02:54.200Z