A Note on Shelling

The radial distribution function is a characteristic geometric quantity of a point set in Euclidean space that reflects itself in the corresponding diffraction spectrum and related objects of physical interest. The underlying combinatorial and algebraic structure is well understood for crystals, but less so for non-periodic arrangements such as mathematical quasicrystals or model sets. In this note, we summarise several aspects of central versus averaged shelling, illustrate the difference with explicit examples, and discuss the obstacles that emerge with aperiodic order.Comment: substantially revised and extended, 15 pages, AMS LaTeX, several figures included; see also math.MG/990715

Averaged shelling for quasicrystals

The shelling of crystals is concerned with counting the number of atoms on spherical shells of a given radius and a fixed centre. Its straight-forward generalization to quasicrystals, the so-called central shelling, leads to non-universal answers. As one way to cope with this situation, we consider shelling averages over all quasicrystal points. We express the averaged shelling numbers in terms of the autocorrelation coefficients and give explicit results for the usual suspects, both perfect and random.Comment: 4 pages, several figures, 2 tables; updated version with minor corrections and improvements; to appear in the proceedings of ICQ

Pinwheel patterns and powder diffraction

Pinwheel patterns and their higher dimensional generalisations display continuous circular or spherical symmetries in spite of being perfectly ordered. The same symmetries show up in the corresponding diffraction images. Interestingly, they also arise from amorphous systems, and also from regular crystals when investigated by powder diffraction. We present first steps and results towards a general frame to investigate such systems, with emphasis on statistical properties that are helpful to understand and compare the diffraction images. We concentrate on properties that are accessible via an alternative substitution rule for the pinwheel tiling, based on two different prototiles. Due to striking similarities, we compare our results with the toy model for the powder diffraction of the square lattice.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Similarity and Coincidence Isometries for Modules

The groups of (linear) similarity and coincidence isometries of certain modules in d-dimensional Euclidean space, which naturally occur in quasicrystallography, are considered. It is shown that the structure of the factor group of similarity modulo coincidence isometries is the direct sum of cyclic groups of prime power orders that divide d. In particular, if the dimension d is a prime number p, the factor group is an elementary Abelian p-group. This generalizes previous results obtained for lattices to situations relevant in quasicrystallography.Comment: 14 page

Combinatorial problems of (quasi-)crystallography

Several combinatorial problems of (quasi-)crystallography are reviewed with special emphasis on a unified approach, valid for both crystals and quasicrystals. In particular, we consider planar sublattices, similarity sublattices, coincidence sublattices, their module counterparts, and central and averaged shelling. The corresponding counting functions are encapsulated in Dirichlet series generating functions, with explicit results for the triangular lattice and the twelvefold symmetric shield tiling. Other combinatorial properties are briefly summarised.Comment: 12 pages, 2 PostScript figures, LaTeX using vch-book.cl

Coincidence rotations of the root lattice A4A_4

The coincidence site lattices of the root lattice $A_4$ are considered, and the statistics of the corresponding coincidence rotations according to their indices is expressed in terms of a Dirichlet series generating function. This is possible via an embedding of $A_4$ into the icosian ring with its rich arithmetic structure, which recently (arXiv:math.MG/0702448) led to the classification of the similar sublattices of $A_4$.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

A dimensionally continued Poisson summation formula

We generalize the standard Poisson summation formula for lattices so that it operates on the level of theta series, allowing us to introduce noninteger dimension parameters (using the dimensionally continued Fourier transform). When combined with one of the proofs of the Jacobi imaginary transformation of theta functions that does not use the Poisson summation formula, our proof of this generalized Poisson summation formula also provides a new proof of the standard Poisson summation formula for dimensions greater than 2 (with appropriate hypotheses on the function being summed). In general, our methods work to establish the (Voronoi) summation formulae associated with functions satisfying (modular) transformations of the Jacobi imaginary type by means of a density argument (as opposed to the usual Mellin transform approach). In particular, we construct a family of generalized theta series from Jacobi theta functions from which these summation formulae can be obtained. This family contains several families of modular forms, but is significantly more general than any of them. Our result also relaxes several of the hypotheses in the standard statements of these summation formulae. The density result we prove for Gaussians in the Schwartz space may be of independent interest.Comment: 12 pages, version accepted by JFAA, with various additions and improvement

Multiple planar coincidences with N-fold symmetry

Planar coincidence site lattices and modules with N-fold symmetry are well understood in a formulation based on cyclotomic fields, in particular for the class number one case, where they appear as certain principal ideals in the corresponding ring of integers. We extend this approach to multiple coincidences, which apply to triple or multiple junctions. In particular, we give explicit results for spectral, combinatorial and asymptotic properties in terms of Dirichlet series generating functions.Comment: 13 pages, two figures. For previous related work see math.MG/0511147 and math.CO/0301021. Minor changes and references update

Averaged coordination numbers of planar aperiodic tilings

We consider averaged shelling and coordination numbers of aperiodic tilings. Shelling numbers count the vertices on radial shells around a vertex. Coordination numbers, in turn, count the vertices on coordination shells of a vertex, defined via the graph distance given by the tiling. For the Ammann–Beenker tiling, we find that coordination shells consist of complete shelling orbits, which enables us to calculate averaged coordination numbers for rather large distances explicitly. The relation to topological invariants of tilings is briefly discussed

Shelling of homogeneous media

A homogeneous medium is characterised by a point set in Euclidean space (for the atomic positions, say), together with some self-averaging property. Crystals and quasicrystals are homogeneous, but also many structures with disorder still are. The corresponding shelling is concerned with the number of points on shells around an arbitrary, but fixed centre. For non-periodic point sets, where the shelling depends on the chosen centre, a more adequate quantity is the averaged shelling, obtained by averaging over points of the set as centres. For homogeneous media, such an average is still well defined, at least almost surely (in the probabilistic sense). Here, we present a two-step approach for planar model sets