Extremal problems of circle packings on a sphere and irreducible contact graphs (Q492212)

A sphere packing in space is called locally rigid if the spheres are arranged so that each sphere from the packing is fixed between its neighbors and cannot be moved aside in a way that increases the minimum distance between the center of this sphere and the centers of other spheres. Let \(S_1, \ldots, S_N\) be disjoint spheres of the same radius \(r\) in \({\mathbb R}^3\), arranged so that all of them touch one (central) sphere of unit radius. Let \(P=\{A_1, \ldots, A_N\}\) be the set of tangency points between the central sphere and \(S_1, \ldots, S_N\). The points \(A_i\) and \(A_j\) are connected by an edge (the minimal arc of the great circle) if \(S_i\) and \(S_j\) touch each other. The graph obtained in this way is called a contact graph. If the associated packing on the sphere \({\mathbb S}^2\) is locally rigid, then the graph is called irreducible. The authors [J. Math. Sci., New York 203, No. 6, 837--850 (2014; Zbl 1310.52024); translation from Fundam. Prikl. Mat. 18, No. 2, 125--145 (2013)] have recently enumerated (up to isometry) all locally rigid packings of congruent circles (spherical caps) on the unit sphere with the number of circles \(N\leq 11\). This problem is equivalent to the enumeration of irreducible spherical contact graphs. In the paper under review, the authors show that using the list of irreducible contact graphs, one can solve various problems on extremal packings, such as Tammes problem for the sphere and projective plane, the problem of the maximum kissing number in spherical packings, Danzer's problems and other selected problems on irreducible contact graphs.