Recursive sequences in the Ford sphere packing

Abstract

An Apollonian packing is one of the most beautiful circle packings based on an old theorem of Apollonius of Perga. Ford circles are important objects for studying the geometry of numbers and the hyperbolic geometry. In this paper we pursue a research on the Ford sphere packing, which is not only the three dimensional extension of Ford circle packing, but also a degenerated case of the Apollonian sphere packing. We focus on two interesting sequences in Ford sphere packings. One sequence converges slowly to an infinitesimal sphere touching the origin of the horizontal plane. The other sequence converges at fastest rate to an infinitesimal sphere in a particular position on the plane. All these sequences have their counterparts in Ford circle packings and keep similar features. For example, our finding shows that the x-coordinate of one Ford circle sequence converges to the golden ratio gracefully. We define a Ford sphere group to interpret the Ford sphere packing and its sequences finally.