Penrose tilings, infinite friezes, and the $A_\infty$-singularity

TL;DR

This paper connects Penrose tilings and infinite frieze patterns to Cohen--Macaulay representation theory, revealing new algebraic structures and extending cluster character methods to nonperiodic tilings.

Contribution

It establishes a novel link between Penrose tilings, infinite friezes, and the $A_ inf$-singularity via triangulations and subcategories of a Frobenius category.

Findings

Penrose tilings correspond to specific triangulations of the completed infinity-gon.

Extended the cluster character to nonperiodic infinite friezes.

Defined new infinite frieze patterns from triangulations related to Penrose tilings.

Abstract

We study Penrose tilings of the plane $\mathbb{R}^2$ and nonperiodic infinite frieze patterns from the point of view of Cohen--Macaulay representation theory: Triangulations of the completed infinity-gon correspond to subcategories of the Frobenius category $\mathcal{C}_2=\mathrm{CM}_{\mathbb{Z}}(\mathbb{C}[x,y]/(x^2))$, the singularity category of the curve singularity of type $A_\infty$. We relate Penrose tilings to certain triangulations of the completed infinity-gon, and thus to the corresponding subcategories of $\mathcal{C}_2$. We then extend the cluster character of Paquette and Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m for a triangulated category modelling said triangulations to our setting. This allows us to define nonperiodic infinite friezes patterns coming from triangulations of the completed infinity-gon and in particular from Penrose tilings.