On the fractal curves induced from the complex radix expansion (Q912227)

It is shown that the boundary curve \(K_{\alpha}\) of the set \(X_{\alpha}=\{\sum^{\infty}_{k=1}a_ k\alpha^{-k}:\quad a_ k\in {\mathcal D}\}\) tiles space and is self-similar, and that the interior of \(X_{\alpha}\) contains 0. Here (\(\alpha\),\({\mathcal D})\) is a number system, i.e. \(\alpha\) is a quadratic integer in \({\mathbb{Z}}(i\sqrt{m})\) and \({\mathcal D}=\{r_ 0,r_ 1,...,r_{N-1}\}\) is a set of N \((=N(\alpha)\), the norm of \(\alpha\)) quadratic integers in \({\mathbb{Z}}(i\sqrt{m})\) such that every quadratic integer \(\beta\in {\mathbb{Z}}(i\sqrt{m})\) has a unique representation \(\beta =r_ 0+r_ 1\alpha +...+r_{N-1}\alpha^{N-1}\). Depending on the form of \(\alpha\), \(K_{\alpha}\) is shown either to have Hausdorff dimension 2 log \(\lambda\) /log N, where \(\lambda\) is a positive root of a cubic over \({\mathbb{Z}}\), or to be a rectangle. The result is proved using a modification of Dekking's method of endomorphisms on the free group of rank 2 associated with (\(\alpha\),\({\mathcal D})\). Figures showing how the boundary curves are built up iteratively for various \(\alpha\) (e.g. \(1+i\), \(-1+i)\) are included.