The Construction of Self-Similar Tilings

Richard Kenyon

We give a construction of a self-similar tiling of the plane with any prescribed expansion coefficient $\lambda\in\C$ (satisfying the necessary algebraic condition of being a complex Perron number).

For any integer $m>1$ we show that there exists a self-similar tiling with $2\pi/m$-rotational symmetry group and expansion $\lambda$ if and only if either $\lambda$ or $\lambda e^{2\pi i/m}$ is a complex Perron number for which $e^{2\pi i/m}$ is in $\Q[\lambda]$, respectively $Q[\lambda e^{2\pi i/m}]$.