Quasicrystallography from Bn lattices

Abstract

We present a group theoretical analysis of the hypercubic lattice described by the affine Coxeter-Weyl group Wa (Bn). An h-fold symmetric quasicrystal structure follows from the hyperqubic lattice whose point group is described by the Coxeter-Weyl group W (Bn) with the Coxeter number h=2n. Higher dimensional cubic lattices are explicitly constructed for n = 4,5,6 by identifying their rank-3 Coxeter subgroups and maximal dihedral subgroups. Decomposition of their Voronoi cells under the respective rank-3 subgroups W (A3), W (H2)×W (A1) and W (H3)lead to the rhombic dodecahedron, rhombic icosahedron and rhombic triacontahedron respectively. Projection of the lattice B4 describes a quasicrystal structure with 8-fold symmetry. The B5 lattice leads to quasicrystals with both 5fold and 10 fold symmetries. The lattice B6 projects on a 12-fold symmetric quasicrystal as well as a 3D icosahedral quasicrystal depending on the choice of subspace of projections. The projected sets of lattice points are compatible with the available experimental data.