Combinatorially regular polyomino tilings (Q818690)

Let \(\mathcal{T}\) be a regular tiling of the plane \(\mathbb R^2\) such that the origin \(o\) belongs to the vertex set \(V\) of the tiling. Let \(\phi:\mathbb R^2\to\mathbb R^2\) be a homeomorphism satisfying i) \(\phi(o)=o\), ii) for each tile \(t\) of \(\mathcal{T}\), \(\phi(t)\) is a union of tiles of \(\mathcal{T}\), and iii) for two tiles \(s,t\) of \(\mathcal{T}\), \(\phi(s)\) and \(\phi(t)\) are equivalent by an orientation-preserving isometry which takes vertices to vertices. Under these conditions it is shown that a subset \(\Lambda\) of \(V\) is a lattice in \(\mathbb R^2\) and \(\phi\) restricted to \(\Lambda\) is a group homomorphism. Moreover, it is proven that \(V\) is the union of at most 36 cosets with respect to \(\Lambda\) and the authors remark that with different methods the bound can be improved to \(6\) which is tight. Due to condition ii) the tiling \(\phi(\mathcal{T})\) consists either of polyominos if \(\mathcal{T}\) is a tiling by squares, or the tiles are polyiamonds in the case of regular triangles, or polyhexes if \(\mathcal{T}\) is a tiling by regular hexagons.