Planar lattices and equilateral polygons (Q2311373)

In the paper under review, the author studies equilateral lattice polygons in general planar lattices (i.e., when the vertices of a polygon \(P\) are points in a lattice \(L\), then we say \(P\) is a lattice polygon in \(L\)). Recall that a lattice \(L\) is called an integral lattice if for every \(x, y \in L\), the inner product \(x \cdot y\) is an integer. We denote by \(D(L)\) the area of a fundamental parallelogram of the lattice \(L\) and by \(v(L)\) one denotes the square-free part of \(D^{2}\) which is an integer for integral lattices \(L\). Main results. A planar integral lattice \(L\) is always similar to a sublattice of \(\mathbb{Z}^{5}\), and if \(\nu(L) \equiv 7 \pmod{8}\), then \(L\) is never similar to a sublattice of \(\mathbb{Z}^{4}\). If \(\nu(L) \not\equiv 7 \pmod{8}\) then \(L\) is similar to a sublattice of \(\mathbb{Z}^{3}\), and \(L\) is similar to a sublattice of \(\mathbb{Z}^{2}\) if and only if \(\nu(L) = 1\). Every planar integral lattice \(L\) contains a convex equilateral \(n\)-gon for every even \(n \geq 4\). A planar integral lattice \(L\) contains an equilateral \(n\)-gon for some odd \(n \geq 3\) if and only if \(\nu(L) \equiv 3 \pmod{4}\). A planar lattice is similar to an integral lattice if and only if it contains a convex equilateral \(n\)-gon for some \(n \not= 4\). For a planar integral lattice \(L\), the following three results are equivalent: (i) \(L\) contains convex equilateral \(n\)-gons for all \(n \geq 3\). (ii) \(L\) contains an equilateral triangle. (iii) \(\nu(L) = 3\).