λ > 4

Gill Barequet, Günter Rote, Mira Shalah

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

A polyomino (“lattice animal”) is an edge-connected set of squares on the two-dimensional square lattice. Counting polyominoes is an extremely hard problem in enumerative combinatorics, with important applications in statistical physics for modeling processes of percolation and collapse of branched polymers. We investigated a fundamental question related to polyominoes, namely, what is their growth constant, the asymptotic ratio between A(n + 1) and A(n) when n → ∞, where A(n) is the number of polyominoes of size n. This value is also known as “Klarner’s constant” and denoted by λ. So far, the best lower and upper bounds on λ were roughly 3.98 and 4.65, respectively, and so not even a single decimal digit of λ was known. Using extremely high computing resources, we have shown (still rigorously) that λ > 4.00253, thereby settled a long-standing problem: proving that the leading digit of λ is 4.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAlgorithms – ESA 2015 - 23rd Annual European Symposium, Proceedings
EditorsNikhil Bansal, Irene Finocchi
Pages83-94
Number of pages12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
Event23rd European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2015 - Patras, Greece
Duration: 14 Sep 201516 Sep 2015

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9294

Conference

Conference23rd European Symposium on Algorithms, ESA 2015
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityPatras
Period14/09/1516/09/15

Keywords

  • Growth constant
  • Lattice animals
  • Polyominoes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Computer Science(all)

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