Saturated packings and reduced coverings obtained by perturbing tilings (Q1044982)

A packing of isometric copies of a body is called \(k\)-saturated if it is not possible to replace \(k-1\) members of the packing by \(k\) isometric images of the body and still have a packing; a packing is completely saturated if it is \(k\)-saturated for all \(k=1, 2, \dots\). A covering of isometric copies of a body is called \(k\)-reduced if it is not possible to replace \(k\) members of the covering by \(k-1\) isometric images of the body and still have a covering; a covering is completely reduced if it is \(k\)-reduced for all \(k=1, 2, \dots\). Let a normed space possess a tiling with unit balls. The authors show that any packing of the space obtained by a small perturbation of the tiling is completely translatively saturated (even in the infinite-dimensional case). Note that isometric copies of unit balls are necessarily congruent by translation. The authors provide several examples to show that in the Euclidean case there are packings obtained by perturbing tilings which are not completely saturated. Also in the Euclidean case they prove a theorem which connects the size of the perturbation and the minimal \(k\) such that any packing is \(k\)-saturated. Analogous results are obtained for coverings.