Recognisability for generalised hierarchical patterns and pattern spaces of finite local complexity
James J. Walton
Published: 2025/9/25
Abstract
We explore an extended notion of a tiling of translational finite local complexity (FLC) being substitutional, or hierarchical, to Euclidean `patterns' and define, more generally, a similar notion for spaces of patterns. We prove recognisability results for these, relating injectivity of substitution to aperiodicity, with no minimality requirements. More precisely, for a suitable power of the substitution map, we determine the size of fibre over any pattern to be the index of its inflated (translational) periods in its whole group of periods. This answers an open question of Cortez and Solomyak, on whether non-periodic tilings necessarily have unique pre-images under substitution: they do, even for a wider notion of pattern and being substitutional; conversely, for an appropriate power of the substitution, discretely periodic points necessarily have multiple pre-images. Our results cover examples of FLC pattern spaces, such as of uniformly discrete but non-relatively dense point sets, that contain elements with non-discrete groups of periods.