Prototiles and Tilings from Voronoi and Delone cells of the Root Lattice A_n

Abstract

We exploit the fact that two-dimensional facets of the Voronoi and Delone cells of the root lattice A_n in n-dimensional space are the identical rhombuses and equilateral triangles respectively.The prototiles obtained from orthogonal projections of the Voronoi and Delaunay (Delone) cells of the root lattice of the Coxeter-Weyl group W(a)_n are classified. Orthogonal projections lead to various rhombuses and several triangles respectively some of which have been extensively discussed in the literature in different contexts. For example, rhombuses of the Voronoi cell of the root lattice A_4 projects onto only two prototiles: thick and thin rhombuses of the Penrose tilings. Similarly the Delone cells tiling the same root lattice projects onto two isosceles Robinson triangles which also lead to Penrose tilings with kites and darts. We point out that the Coxeter element of order h=n+1 and the dihedral subgroup of order 2n plays a crucial role for h-fold symmetric aperiodic tilings of the Coxeter plane. After setting the general scheme we give examples leading to tilings with 4-fold, 5-fold, 6-fold,7-fold, 8-fold and 12-fold symmetries with rhombic and triangular tilings of the plane which are useful in modelling the quasicrystallography with 5-fold, 8-fold and 12-fold symmetries. The face centered cubic (f.c.c.) lattice described by the root lattice A_(3)whose Wigner-Seitz cell is the rhombic dodecahedron projects, as expected, onto a square lattice with an h=4 fold symmetry.