Comprising the proceedings of the fall 1995 semester program arranged by The Fields Institute at the U. of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, this volume contains eleven contributions which address ordered aperiodic systems realized either as point sets with the Delone property or as tilings of a Euclidean space. This collection of articles aims to bring into the mainstream of mathematics and mathematical physics this developing field of study integrating algebra, geometry, Fourier analysis, number theory, crystallography, and theoretical physics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Quasicrystals and Geometry brings together for the first time the many strands of contemporary research in quasicrystal geometry and weaves them into a coherent whole. The author describes the historical and scientific context of this work, and carefully explains what has been proved and what is conjectured. This, together with a bibliography of over 250 references, provides a solid background for further study. The discovery in 1984 of crystals with 'forbidden' symmetry posed fascinating and challenging problems in many fields of mathematics, as well as in the solid state sciences. Increasingly, mathematicians and physicists are becoming intrigued by the quasicrystal phenomenon, and the result has been an exponential growth in the literature on the geometry of diffraction patterns, the behaviour of the Fibonacci and other nonperiodic sequences, and the fascinating properties of the Penrose tilings and their many relatives.
A detailed evaluation of the similarities and differences in the theoretical and experimental approaches implemented in the studies of the three types of systems. The papers from the September 1989 Workshop are presented within three sections addressing structure and geometry, models for stability a
In this up-to-date review and guide to most recent literature, the expert authors develop concepts related to quasiperiodic coverings and describe results. The text describes specific systems in 2 and 3 dimensions with many illustrations, and analyzes the atomic positions in quasicrystals.
Introduction to the Mathematics of Quasicrystals provides a pedagogical introduction to mathematical concepts and results necessary for a quantitative description or analysis of quasicrystals. This book is organized into five chapters that cover the three mathematical areas most relevant to quasicrystals, namely, the theory of almost periodic functions, the theory of aperiodic tilings, and group theory. Chapter 1 describes the aspects of the theory of tiling in two- and three-dimensional space that are important for understanding some of the ways in which “classical mathematical crystallography is being generalized; this process is to include possible models for aperiodic crystals. Chapter 2 examines the non-local nature of assembly “mistakes that might have significance to the quasicrystals growth. This chapter also describes how closely a physical quasicrystal might be able to approximate a three-dimensional version of tilings. Chapter 3 discusses the theoretical background and concepts of group theory of icosahedral quasicrystals. Chapter 4 presents the local properties of the three-dimensional Penrose tilings and their global construction is described through the projection method. This chapter emphasizes the relationship between quasiperiodic sets of points and quasiperiodic tiling. Chapter 5 explores the analysis of defects in quasicrystals and their kinetics, as well as some properties of the perfect system. This book is of great value to physicists, crystallographers, metallurgists, and beginners in the field of quasicrystals.
This volume includes twelve solicited articles which survey the current state of knowledge and some of the open questions on the mathematics of aperiodic order. A number of the articles deal with the sophisticated mathematical ideas that are being developed from physical motivations. Many prominent mathematical aspects of the subject are presented, including the geometry of aperiodic point sets and their diffractive properties, self-affine tilings, the role of $C*$-algebras in tiling theory, and the interconnections between symmetry and aperiodic point sets. Also discussed are the question of pure point diffraction of general model sets, the arithmetic of shelling icosahedral quasicrystals, and the study of self-similar measures on model sets. From the physical perspective, articles reflect approaches to the mathematics of quasicrystal growth and the Wulff shape, recent results on the spectral nature of aperiodic Schrödinger operators with implications to transport theory, the characterization of spectra through gap-labelling, and the mathematics of planar dimer models. A selective bibliography with comments is also provided to assist the reader in getting an overview of the field. The book will serve as a comprehensive guide and an inspiration to those interested in learning more about this intriguing subject.
Quasicrystals form a new state of solid matter beside the crystalline and the amorphous. The positions of the atoms are ordered, but with noncrystallographic rotational symmetries and in a nonperiodic way. The new structure induces unusual physical properties, promising interesting applications. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review and presents most recent research results, achieved by a collaboration of physicists, chemists, material scientists and mathematicians within the Priority Programme "Quasicrystals: Structure and Physical Properties" of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Starting from metallurgy, synthesis and characterization, the authors carry on with structure and mathematical modelling. On this basis electronic, magnetic, thermal, dynamic and mechanical properties are dealt with and finally surfaces and thin films.
The book provides an introduction to all aspects of the physics of quasicrystals. The chapters, each written by an expert in this field, cover quasiperiodic tilings and the modeling of the atomic structure of quasicrystals. The electronic density of states and the calculation of the electronic structure play a key role in this introduction, as does an extensive discussion of the atomic dynamics. The study of defects in quasicrystals by high resolution electron microscopy and the computer simulations of defects and fracture in decorated tilings are important subjects for the application of these aperiodic crystals.
This book is a collection of part of the written versions of the Physics Courses given at the Winter School "Order, Chance and Risk: Aperiodic Phenomena from Solid State to Finance" held at the Les Houches Center for Physics, between February 23 and March 6, 1998. The School gathered lecturers and participants from all over the world. On a thematic level, the content of the school can be viewed both as a continuation (aperiodic phenomena in solid state physics) and an extension (mathematical aspects of fmance and economy) of the previous "Beyond Quasicrystals", also held at Les Houches, March 7-18 1994 and published in the same ·series. One of its important goals was to promote in-depth concrete scientific exchanges between theoretical physicists, experimental physicists and mathematicians on the one hand, and on the other hand practitioners of the economico-fmancial sphere and specialists of financial mathematics. Therefore, besides the mathematical tools and concepts at work in theoretical descriptions, relevant experimental data were also presented together with methods allowing their interpretation. As a result of this choice, the School was stimulated by experimentalists and fmancial market operators who joined the theoretical physicists and mathematicians at the conference. The present volume deals with the theoretical and experimental studies on aperiodic solids with long range order, incommensurate phases, quasicrystals, glasses, and more complex systems (fractal, chaotic), while a second volume to appear in the same series is devoted to the finance and economy facet.
In 1984 physicists discovered a monster in the world of crystallography, a structure that appeared to contain five-fold symmetry axes, which cannot exist in strictly periodic structures. Such quasi-periodic structures became known as quasicrystals. A previously formulated theory in terms ofhigher dimensional space groups was applied to them and new alloy phases were prepared which exhibited the properties expected from this model more closely. Thus many of the early controversies were dissolved. This primer is intended to provide a descriptive approach to the subject for thosecoming to it for the first time. The various practical, experimental, and theoretical topics are dealt with in an accessible style. The book is completed by problem sets and there is a computer program that generates a Penrose lattice. Following the success of the first and second editions theopportunity has been taken to reprint the second edition in paperback at a more modest price.
