Tiling Convex Polygons with Congruent Equilateral Triangles

Abstract

We study the sets $\mathcal{T}_{v}=\{m \in\{1,2,\ldots\}: \mbox{there is a convex polygon in }\mathbb{R}^{2}\mbox{ that has }v\mbox{ vertices and can be tiled with $m$ congruent equilateral triangles}\}$ , v=3,4,5,6. $\mathcal{T}_{3}$ , $\mathcal{T}_{4}$ , and $\mathcal{T}_{6}$ can be quoted completely. The complement $\{1,2,\ldots\} \setminus\mathcal{T}_{5}$ of $\mathcal{T}_{5}$ turns out to be a subset of Euler’s numeri idonei. As a consequence, $\{1,2,\ldots\} \setminus\mathcal{T}_{5}$ can be characterized with up to two exceptions, and a complete characterization is given under the assumption of the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis.