Self-affine manifolds (Q904030)

This paper gives conditions to determine whether self-tiles could be manifolds in a nontrivial way. The methods are developed via building a bridge linking geometric topology and iterated function systems and their attractors. Roughly speaking, self-affine tiles can be modeled by iterative systems so that there exists a computable map between the subdivisons of the attractor and self-affine tiles. Since such an induced map is a quotient map, decomposition theory is employed to verify whether it is a monotone or cell-like map. The manifolds recognition theories of Cannon and Edwards are applied to develop algorithms to check whether a self-affine manifold is a generalized manifold or even a manifold. In particular, this paper confirms that there exists a self-affine 3-manifold homeomorphic to a 3-ball. Moreover, an example of a self-affine tile homeomorphic to an Alexander horned crumpled cube is constructed.