Resnikoff silver numbers and tilings of the half-line (Dedicated to the memory of H.L.Resnikoff)

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Main Authors: Dorfmeister, Josef F., Walcher, Sebastian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Dorfmeister, Josef F.
Walcher, Sebastian
author_facet Dorfmeister, Josef F.
Walcher, Sebastian
contents Building on work by H.L.Resnikoff we consider (Resnikoff) silver numbers, which generalize the familiar golden number. By definition, a silver number is the largest positive root of a certain polynomial called silver polynomial. In turn, a corresponding companion matrix of a silver polynomial gives rise to a well known construction of inflationary tilings of the (non-negative) real half-line, via an iteration of inflation and substitution. Resnikoff noted for the golden number $ϕ$ that this tiling corresponds to the set of what he called $ϕ$-integers. We generalize this result for a special class of silver numbers, the distinguished silver numbers, by showing that the integers for a distinguished silver number give rise to a tiling, of which we provide a precise description. For the general problem, whether the integers for an arbitrary silver number give rise to a tiling, we cannot give a general answer, but we show that tilings are obtained if and only if the differences of silver integers satisfy a (rather weak looking) non-accumulation condition. If tilings of this type exist for certain (necessarily non-distinguished) silver numbers, they would seem to form a class of inflationary tilings that differs from those obtained by inflation and substitution. In an Appendix we recall necessary notions and -- mostly known -- results, including the inflation-substitution construction principle for (one dimensional) inflationary tilings, in an elementary manner. For the readers' convenience we also collect the pertinent facts about non-negative matrices, thus the construction is accessible with only basic prerequisites from linear algebra and analysis. Finally, in our setting we give a detailed proof of a non-periodicity result that goes back to Penrose.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_03053
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Resnikoff silver numbers and tilings of the half-line (Dedicated to the memory of H.L.Resnikoff)
Dorfmeister, Josef F.
Walcher, Sebastian
Combinatorics
37B52, 15B48, 11K16
Building on work by H.L.Resnikoff we consider (Resnikoff) silver numbers, which generalize the familiar golden number. By definition, a silver number is the largest positive root of a certain polynomial called silver polynomial. In turn, a corresponding companion matrix of a silver polynomial gives rise to a well known construction of inflationary tilings of the (non-negative) real half-line, via an iteration of inflation and substitution. Resnikoff noted for the golden number $ϕ$ that this tiling corresponds to the set of what he called $ϕ$-integers. We generalize this result for a special class of silver numbers, the distinguished silver numbers, by showing that the integers for a distinguished silver number give rise to a tiling, of which we provide a precise description. For the general problem, whether the integers for an arbitrary silver number give rise to a tiling, we cannot give a general answer, but we show that tilings are obtained if and only if the differences of silver integers satisfy a (rather weak looking) non-accumulation condition. If tilings of this type exist for certain (necessarily non-distinguished) silver numbers, they would seem to form a class of inflationary tilings that differs from those obtained by inflation and substitution. In an Appendix we recall necessary notions and -- mostly known -- results, including the inflation-substitution construction principle for (one dimensional) inflationary tilings, in an elementary manner. For the readers' convenience we also collect the pertinent facts about non-negative matrices, thus the construction is accessible with only basic prerequisites from linear algebra and analysis. Finally, in our setting we give a detailed proof of a non-periodicity result that goes back to Penrose.
title Resnikoff silver numbers and tilings of the half-line (Dedicated to the memory of H.L.Resnikoff)
topic Combinatorics
37B52, 15B48, 11K16
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03053