Number of bounded distance equivalence classes in hulls of repetitive Delone sets

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Two Delone sets are bounded distance equivalent to each other if there is a bijection between them such that the distance of corresponding points is uniformly bounded. Bounded distance equivalence is an equivalence relation. We show that the hull of a repetitive Delone set with finite local complexity has either one equivalence class or uncountably many.</p>

On the origin of crystallinity: a lower bound for the regularity radius of Delone sets

The mathematical conditions for the origin of long-range order or crystallinity in ideal crystals are one of the very fundamental problems of modern crystallography. It is widely believed that the (global) regularity of crystals is a consequence of `local order', in particular the repetition of local fragments, but the exact mathematical theory of this phenomenon is poorly known. In particular, most mathematical models for quasicrystals, for example Penrose tiling, have repetitive local fragments, but are not (globally) regular. The universal abstract models of any atomic arrangements are Delone sets, which are uniformly distributed discrete point sets in Euclidean d space. An ideal crystal is a regular or multi-regular system, that is, a Delone set, which is the orbit of a single point or finitely many points under a crystallographic group of isometries. The local theory of regular or multi-regular systems aims at finding sufficient local conditions for a Delone set X to be a regular or multi-regular system. One of the main goals is to estimate the regularity radius \hat{\rho}_d for Delone sets X in terms of the radius R of the largest `empty ball' for X. The celebrated `local criterion for regular systems' provides an upper bound for \hat{\rho_d} for any d. Better upper bounds are known for d ≤ 3. The present article establishes the lower bound \hat{\rho_d}\geq 2dR for all d, which is linear in d. The best previously known lower bound had been \hat{\rho}_d\geq 4R for d ≥ 2. The proof of the new lower bound is accomplished through explicit constructions of Delone sets with mutually equivalent (2dR − ∊)-clusters, which are not regular systems. The two- and three-dimensional constructions are illustrated by examples. In addition to its fundamental importance, the obtained result is also relevant for the understanding of geometrical conditions of the formation of ordered and disordered arrangements in polytypic materials.

Equicontinuous Delone Dynamical Systems

We characterize equicontinuous Delone dynamical systems as those coming from Delone sets with strongly almost periodic Dirac combs. Within the class of systems with finite local complexity, the only equicontinuous systems are then shown to be the crystallographic ones. On the other hand, within the class without finite local complexity, we exhibit examples of equicontinuous minimal Delone dynamical systems that are not crystallographic. Our results solve the problem posed by Lagarias as to whether a Delone set whose Dirac comb is strongly almost periodic must be crystallographic.

Tower systems for linearly repetitive Delone sets

In this paper we study linearly repetitive Delone sets and prove, following the work of Bellissard, Benedetti and Gambaudo, that the hull of a linearly repetitive Delone set admits a properly nested sequence of box decompositions (tower system) with strictly positive and uniformly bounded (in size and norm) transition matrices. This generalizes a result of Durand for linearly recurrent symbolic systems. Furthermore, we apply this result to give a new proof of a classic estimation of Lagarias and Pleasants on the rate of convergence of patch frequencies.

Local Complexity of Delone Sets and Crystallinity

This paper characterizes when a Delone set X in is an ideal crystal in terms of restrictions on the number of its local patches of a given size or on the heterogeneity of their distribution. For a Delone set X, let NX(T) count the number of translation-inequivalent patches of radius T in X and let MX(T) be the minimum radius such that every closed ball of radius MX(T) contains the center of a patch of every one of these kinds. We show that for each of these functions there is a “gap in the spectrum” of possible growth rates between being bounded and having linear growth, and that having sufficiently slow linear growth is equivalent to X being an ideal crystal.Explicitly, for NX(T), if R is the covering radius of X then either NX(T) is bounded or NX(T) ≥ T/2R for all T > 0. The constant 1/2R in this bound is best possible in all dimensions.For MX(T), either MX(T) is bounded or MX(T) ≥ T/3 for all T > 0. Examples show that the constant 1/3 in this bound cannot be replaced by any number exceeding 1/2. We also show that every aperiodic Delone set X has MX(T) ≥ c(n)T for all T > 0, for a certain constant c(n) which depends on the dimension n of X and is > 1/3 when n > 1.