New dense superball packings in three dimensions (Q2663677)

One of the most central problems in discrete geometry is to find dense packings of spheres in the \( n\)-dimensional Euclidean space. The two-dimensional case was discussed by \textit{H. Minkowski} [Diophantische Approximationen. Eine Einführung in die Zahlentheorie. Mathematische Vorlesungen an der Universität Göttingen. II. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. viii, 235 S. Mit 82 Fig. (1907; JFM 38.0220.15)]. However, until today the problem is not completely solved. For a brief survey refer to [\textit{C. Zong}, Expo. Math. 32, No. 4, 297--364 (2014; Zbl 1307.52012)]. \textit{Y. Jiao} et al. [``Optimal packings of superballs'', Phys. Rev. E (3) 79, No. 4, 041309 (2009)] determined four families of dense superball packings in three dimensions via computer simulations. They divided the possible values of \( p\) into four regimes: \(p \in [1, \infty) = [1, log_{2} 3 ] \cup [log_{2} 3, 2] \cup [2, 2.3018\ldots] \cup [2.3018 \ldots , \infty)\). The family for the first regime is named as the \( \mathbb{O}_{1}\) lattices, and \( \mathbb{O}_{0}\), \( \mathbb{C}_{0}\), \( \mathbb{C}_{1}\) are respectively the second, third and fourth regime. They conjectured that they have found the densest congruent packings of \(\mathfrak{B}_{3}^{p}\) for all values of \(p\). However, \textit{R. Ni} et al. [``Phase diagram of colloidal hard superballs: from cubes via spheres to octahedra'', Soft. Matter 8, 8826--8834 (2012)] found, also via computer simulations, denser lattice packings for superballs in the second regime. Also for \( p = 1.4 \), which falls into the first regime, they give one lattice for which they claim that it is denser than the corresponding \( \mathbb{O}_{1}\) lattice. In this paper, lattice packings of superballs in dimension three have been considered and a method of Minkowski [loc. cit.] has been used to identify candidates for locally densest lattice packings of \(\mathfrak{B}_{3}^{p}\). Minkowski applied this method to determine the densest lattice packing of regular octahedra \(\mathfrak{B}_{3}^{1}\). Starting from Minkowski's lattice a family of new lattice packings for the first regime has been obtained which is denser than the \( \mathbb{O}_{1}\) lattices. New lattice packings in the second regime which are denser than the \( \mathbb{O}_{0}\) lattices have also been found. For the third and fourth regime the densest lattices obtained are respectively the \(\mathbb{C}_{0}\) and the \(\mathbb{C}_{1}\) lattices. In the end some conjectures and open problems have been posed.