Dense packings with nonparallel cylinders (Q2337366)

The paper under review considers packing of infinite cylinders in \(3\)-dimensional Euclidean space. It is known that densest such packing is achieved by a collection of parallel cylinders, whose perpendicular \(2\)-dimensional section is a hexagonal circle packing in the plane; this density is \(\pi/\sqrt{12} = 0.9068\dots\) [\textit{A. Bezdek} and \textit{W. Kuperberg}, Mathematika 37, No. 1, 74--80 (1990; Zbl 0715.52006)]. This result raises a natural question: how a dense can a packing of nonparallel cylinders be? Nonparallel cylinder packings with density \(\pi^2/576 = 0.017\dots\) were constructed in [\textit{K. Kuperberg}, Mathematika 37, No. 2, 324--331 (1990; Zbl 0721.52012)], and a refined construction with density \(5/12 = 0.4166\dots\) was given in [\textit{C. Graf} and \textit{P. Paukowitsch}, Elem. Math. 52, No. 2, 71--83 (1997; Zbl 0904.52008)]. In the current paper, the authors produce such a construction with density \(1/2\). Moreover, they show that there exist packings in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) with no two cylinders parallel, whose local density is arbitrarily close to the local density of a packing with parallel cylinders.