On the connectedness of planar self-affine sets

In this paper, we consider the connectedness of planar self-affine set $T(A,\mathcal{D})$ arising from an integral expanding matrix $A$ with characteristic polynomial $f(x)=x^2+bx+c$ and a digit set $\mathcal{D}=\{0,1,\dots, m\}v$. The necessary and sufficient conditions only depending on $b,c,m$ are given for the $T(A,\mathcal{D})$ to be connected. Moreover, we also consider the case that ${\mathcal D}$ is non-consecutively collinear.Comment: 18 pages; 18 figure

Boundaries of Disk-like Self-affine Tiles

Let $T:= T(A, {\mathcal D})$ be a disk-like self-affine tile generated by an integral expanding matrix $A$ and a consecutive collinear digit set ${\mathcal D}$, and let $f(x)=x^{2}+px+q$ be the characteristic polynomial of $A$. In the paper, we identify the boundary $\partial T$ with a sofic system by constructing a neighbor graph and derive equivalent conditions for the pair $(A,{\mathcal D})$ to be a number system. Moreover, by using the graph-directed construction and a device of pseudo-norm $\omega$, we find the generalized Hausdorff dimension $\dim_H^{\omega} (\partial T)=2\log \rho(M)/\log |q|$ where $\rho(M)$ is the spectral radius of certain contact matrix $M$. Especially, when $A$ is a similarity, we obtain the standard Hausdorff dimension $\dim_H (\partial T)=2\log \rho/\log |q|$ where $\rho$ is the largest positive zero of the cubic polynomial $x^{3}-(|p|-1)x^{2}-(|q|-|p|)x-|q|$, which is simpler than the known result.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figure

Connectedness of planar self-affine sets associated with non-consecutive collinear digit sets

In the paper, we focus on the connectedness of planar self-affine sets $T(A,{\mathcal{D}})$ generated by an integer expanding matrix $A$ with $|\det (A)|=3$ and a collinear digit set ${\mathcal{D}}=\{0,1,b\}v$, where $b>1$ and $v\in {\mathbb{R}}^2$ such that $\{v, Av\}$ is linearly independent. We discuss the domain of the digit $b$ to determine the connectedness of $T(A,{\mathcal{D}})$. Especially, a complete characterization is obtained when we restrict $b$ to be an integer. Some results on the general case of $|\det (A)|> 3$ are obtained as well.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

Self-affine Manifolds

This paper studies closed 3-manifolds which are the attractors of a system of finitely many affine contractions that tile $\mathbb{R}^3$. Such attractors are called self-affine tiles. Effective characterization and recognition theorems for these 3-manifolds as well as theoretical generalizations of these results to higher dimensions are established. The methods developed build a bridge linking geometric topology with iterated function systems and their attractors. A method to model self-affine tiles by simple iterative systems is developed in order to study their topology. The model is functorial in the sense that there is an easily computable map that induces isomorphisms between the natural subdivisions of the attractor of the model and the self-affine tile. It has many beneficial qualities including ease of computation allowing one to determine topological properties of the attractor of the model such as connectedness and whether it is a manifold. The induced map between the attractor of the model and the self-affine tile is a quotient map and can be checked in certain cases to be monotone or cell-like. Deep theorems from geometric topology are applied to characterize and develop algorithms to recognize when a self-affine tile is a topological or generalized manifold in all dimensions. These new tools are used to check that several self-affine tiles in the literature are 3-balls. An example of a wild 3-dimensional self-affine tile is given whose boundary is a topological 2-sphere but which is not itself a 3-ball. The paper describes how any 3-dimensional handlebody can be given the structure of a self-affine 3-manifold. It is conjectured that every self-affine tile which is a manifold is a handlebody.Comment: 40 pages, 13 figures, 2 table