Aperiodicity, rotational tiling spaces and topological space groups (Q2042011)

An effective way to study the topological properties associated to a tiling \(T\) is to construct a tiling space (or a translational hull) which is a matchbox manifold. The authors consider the extension to rotations and use shape theory since the classical homotopy groups are not appropriate for general aperiodic tilings. The rotational hull \(\Omega_{r}\) of \(T\) is defined as the set of tilings whose finite patches appear in \(T\) up to orientation preserving isometries (rigid motions). It is also a matchbox manifold and it was previously studied in [\textit{L. Sadun}, Topology of tiling spaces. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2008; Zbl 1166.52001); \textit{M. Barge} et al., Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 30, No. 6, 1607--1627 (2010; Zbl 1225.37021)]. Another space used in this paper is the homotopy quotient of the rotational hull by the point group \(G\) of \(T\), denoted by \(\Omega_{G}\). Only tilings with finite local complexity are considered, excluding for example the pinwheel tiling, which has an infinite point group. The study of the topology of \(\Omega_{r}\) and \(\Omega_{G}\) is used to define algebraic objects related to an aperiodic tiling that are invariant under the S-MLD (``Mutually Locally Derived'') equivalence relation, which is associated to rigid motions of finite patches within the tilings. The computation of these invariants is difficult in general, however certain particular cases can be analysed. For example, it is considered an aperiodic tiling \(\mathcal{F}\) in \({\mathbb{R}}^3\) given by cuboid tiles decorated as the Cartesian product of three copies of a one-dimensional tiling with two tile types distributed according to a Sturmian sequence. The cohomology \(H^{n}(\Omega_{r};{\mathbb{Z}})\) of the rotational hull is determined for both the periodic cubic tiling in \({\mathbb{R}}^3\) and \(\mathcal{F}\).