Self-similar fractals related to regular tetrahedron and imaginary cubes

Abstract

We consider self-similar sets in three-dimensional Euclidean space related to a regular tetrahedron. Sierpi${\rm \acute{n}}$ski tetrahedron is one such self-similar set. In this paper, we study the whole family of those sets. Our motivation is to obtain three-dimensional analogues of the fractal $n$-gons. In particular, we focus on the geometric properties of those sets from a viewpoint of ``imaginary cube''. An imaginary cube is a set $A$ for which there is some cube $C$ such that the projections of $A$ in the directions of the faces of $C$ equal these projections of $C$. It is already known that the Sierpi${\rm \acute{n}}$ski tetrahedron is an imaginary cube. We obtain a criterion for self-similar sets to be imaginary cubes. Furthermore, we show some properties of those sets which are imaginary cubes from a viewpoint of rotational symmetry or connectedness.