Sphere packings. V: Pentahedral prisms

DOI10.1007/S00454-005-1214-YMaRDI QIDQ735000zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Publication date 14 October 2009

Published in Discrete \& Computational Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9811077

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

Abstract: The Hales program to prove the Kepler conjecture on sphere packings consists of five steps, which if completed, will jointly comprise a proof of the conjecture. We carry out step five of the program [outlined in math.MG/9811073], a proof that the local density of a certain combinatorial arrangement, the pentahedral prism, is less than that of the face-centered cubic lattice packing. We prove various relations on the local density using computer-based interval arithmetic methods. Together, these relations imply the local density bound.

Review text

This paper is the fifth in the series of six papers devoted to the proof of the Kepler's conjecture, all in Discrete Comput. Geom. 36, No. 1. This famous conjecture, open since 1611, asserts that no packing of congruent balls in three dimensions has density greater than the face-centered cubic packing. In the second paper of this series a compact topological space of decomposition stars was defined, and a continuous scoring function on this space was introduced. Moreover, Kepler's conjecture was related to a certain conjecture about location of global maxima of this scoring function. The two conjectured global maxima of the scoring function (corresponding to decomposition stars of the face-centered cubic and hexagonal-close packings) were shown to be local maxima in the third paper of this series. A so-called \textit{contravening} decomposition star is a potential counterexample to the Kepler's conjecture. This paper considers a particular class of potentially contravening decomposition stars, \textit{pentahedral prisms}, on which the scoring function comes very close to its values at the decomposition stars of the face-centered cubic and hexagonal-close packings. The subject of this paper is to prove that in fact pentahedral prisms are not contravening.

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