Undecidability of Tiling with a Tromino

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: ULB CompGeom Group, Abel, Zachary, Akitaya, Hugo, Chung, Lily, Demaine, Erik D., Diomidova, Jenny, Hendrickson, Della, Langerman, Stefan, Lynch, Jayson
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author ULB CompGeom Group
Abel, Zachary
Akitaya, Hugo
Chung, Lily
Demaine, Erik D.
Diomidova, Jenny
Hendrickson, Della
Langerman, Stefan
Lynch, Jayson
author_facet ULB CompGeom Group
Abel, Zachary
Akitaya, Hugo
Chung, Lily
Demaine, Erik D.
Diomidova, Jenny
Hendrickson, Della
Langerman, Stefan
Lynch, Jayson
contents Given a periodic placement of copies of a tromino (either L or I), we prove co-RE-completeness (and hence undecidability) of deciding whether it can be completed to a plane tiling. By contrast, the problem becomes decidable if the initial placement is finite, or if the tile is a domino instead of a tromino (in any dimension). As a consequence, tiling a given periodic subset of the plane with a given tromino (L or I) is co-RE-complete. We also prove co-RE-completeness of tiling the entire plane with two polyominoes (one of which is disconnected and the other of which has constant size), and of tiling 3D space with two connected polycubes (one of which has constant size). If we restrict to tiling by translation only (no rotation), then we obtain co-RE-completeness with one more tile: two trominoes for a periodic subset of 2D, three polyominoes for the 2D plane, and three connected polycubes for 3D space. Along the way, we prove several new complexity and algorithmic results about periodic (infinite) graphs. Notably, we prove that Periodic Planar (1-in-)3SAT-3, 3DM, and Graph Orientation are co-RE-complete in 2D and PSPACE-complete in 1D; we extend basic results in graph drawing to 2D periodic graphs; and we give a polynomial-time algorithm for perfect matching in bipartite periodic graphs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_07906
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Undecidability of Tiling with a Tromino
ULB CompGeom Group
Abel, Zachary
Akitaya, Hugo
Chung, Lily
Demaine, Erik D.
Diomidova, Jenny
Hendrickson, Della
Langerman, Stefan
Lynch, Jayson
Computational Geometry
Metric Geometry
Given a periodic placement of copies of a tromino (either L or I), we prove co-RE-completeness (and hence undecidability) of deciding whether it can be completed to a plane tiling. By contrast, the problem becomes decidable if the initial placement is finite, or if the tile is a domino instead of a tromino (in any dimension). As a consequence, tiling a given periodic subset of the plane with a given tromino (L or I) is co-RE-complete. We also prove co-RE-completeness of tiling the entire plane with two polyominoes (one of which is disconnected and the other of which has constant size), and of tiling 3D space with two connected polycubes (one of which has constant size). If we restrict to tiling by translation only (no rotation), then we obtain co-RE-completeness with one more tile: two trominoes for a periodic subset of 2D, three polyominoes for the 2D plane, and three connected polycubes for 3D space. Along the way, we prove several new complexity and algorithmic results about periodic (infinite) graphs. Notably, we prove that Periodic Planar (1-in-)3SAT-3, 3DM, and Graph Orientation are co-RE-complete in 2D and PSPACE-complete in 1D; we extend basic results in graph drawing to 2D periodic graphs; and we give a polynomial-time algorithm for perfect matching in bipartite periodic graphs.
title Undecidability of Tiling with a Tromino
topic Computational Geometry
Metric Geometry
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07906