12-neighbour packings of unit balls in E^3

DOI10.1007/S10474-015-0527-4MaRDI QIDQ343229zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors K. Böröczky, L. Szabó

Publication date 25 November 2016

Published in Acta Mathematica Hungarica (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s10474-015-0527-4

zbMATH Keywords

\(12\)-neighbour packingsdiscrete geometryFejes Tóth's conjecture

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of packing and covering (05B40) Packing and covering in (n) dimensions (aspects of discrete geometry) (52C17)

Review text

László Fejes Tóth conjectured that any \(12\)-neighbour packing of unit balls in \(E^3\), i.e., each ball is touched by \(12\) others, is composed of hexagonal layers as, e.g., in a densest lattice packing of unit balls. In 2012, \textit{T.C. Hales} published a preprint on the arXiv [``A proof of Fejes Toth's conjecture on sphere packings with kissing number twelve, Preprint, \url{arXiv:1209.6043}] containing a computer-assisted proof of this conjecture. In the paper under review, the authors give a different and more geometric proof of this conjecture. It depends only in one place on a computer-aided result, namely on the recent solution of the Tammes problem for 13 points due to \textit{O.R. Musin} and \textit{A.S. Tarasov} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 48, No. 1, 128--141 (2012; Zbl 1269.52015)]. The general Tammes problem is the task to find an arrangement of \(n\) points on the unit ball such that the minimal distance between all pairs is maximized.

Recommendations

• Research problems
• The strong dodecahedral conjecture and Fejes Tóth's conjecture on sphere packings with kissing number twelve
• The strong thirteen spheres problem
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3915121
• The Tammes problem for N = 14

Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2068102 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3309788 (Why is no real title available?)
• New upper bounds for kissing numbers from semidefinite programming
• On the Densest Packing of Spherical Caps
• Research problems
• The strong dodecahedral conjecture and Fejes Tóth's conjecture on sphere packings with kissing number twelve
• The strong thirteen spheres problem

Cited in

(5)

• \(\varepsilon\)-quasi-twelve-neighbour packings of unit balls in \({\mathbb E}^3\)
• A note on the ten-neighbour packing of equal balls
• Configuration spaces of equal spheres touching a given sphere: the twelve spheres problem
• The strong thirteen spheres problem
• Towards a proof of the 24-cell conjecture

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