# Sphere packing

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In geometry, a sphere packing is an arrangement of non-overlapping spheres within a containing space. The spheres considered are usually all of identical size, and the space is usually three-dimensional Euclidean space. However, sphere packing problems can be generalised to consider unequal spheres, spaces of other dimensions (where the problem becomes circle packing in two dimensions, or hypersphere packing in higher dimensions) or to non-Euclidean spaces such as hyperbolic space.

## Contents

A typical sphere packing problem is to find an arrangement in which the spheres fill as much of the space as possible. The proportion of space filled by the spheres is called the density of the arrangement. As the local density of a packing in an infinite space can vary depending on the volume over which it is measured, the problem is usually to maximise the average or asymptotic density, measured over a large enough volume.

For equal spheres in three dimensions, the densest packing uses approximately 74% of the volume. A random packing of equal spheres generally has a density around 64%.

## Classification and terminology

A lattice arrangement (commonly called a regular arrangement) is one in which the centers of the spheres form a very symmetric pattern which needs only n vectors to be uniquely defined (in n-dimensional Euclidean space). Lattice arrangements are periodic. Arrangements in which the spheres do not form a lattice (often referred to as irregular) can still be periodic, but also aperiodic (properly speaking non-periodic) or random . Lattice arrangements are easier to handle than irregular ones—their high degree of symmetry makes it easier to classify them and to measure their densities.

## Regular packing

### Dense packing

In three-dimensional Euclidean space, the densest packing of equal spheres is achieved by a family of structures called close-packed structures. One method for generating such a structure is as follows. Consider a plane with a compact arrangement of spheres on it. Call it A. For any three neighbouring spheres, a fourth sphere can be placed on top in the hollow between the three bottom spheres. If we do this for half of the holes in a second plane above the first, we create a new compact layer. There are two possible choices for doing this, call them B and C. Suppose that we chose B. Then one half of the hollows of B lies above the centers of the balls in A and one half lies above the hollows of A which were not used for B. Thus the balls of a third layer can be placed either directly above the balls of the first one, yielding a layer of type A, or above the holes of the first layer which were not occupied by the second layer, yielding a layer of type C. Combining layers of types A, B, and C produces various close-packed structures.

Two simple arrangements within the close-packed family correspond to regular lattices. One is called cubic close packing (or face-centred cubic, "FCC")—where the layers are alternated in the ABCABC... sequence. The other is called hexagonal close packing ("HCP")—where the layers are alternated in the ABAB... sequence. But many layer stacking sequences are possible (ABAC, ABCBA, ABCBAC, etc.), and still generate a close-packed structure. In all of these arrangements each sphere touches 12 neighboring spheres, [1] and the average density is

${\displaystyle {\frac {\pi }{3{\sqrt {2}}}}\simeq 0.74048.}$

Carl Friedrich Gauss proved in 1831 that these packings have the highest density amongst all possible lattice packings. [2]

In 1611 Johannes Kepler conjectured that this is the maximum possible density amongst both regular and irregular arrangements—this became known as the Kepler conjecture. In 1998, Thomas Callister Hales, following the approach suggested by László Fejes Tóth in 1953, announced a proof of the Kepler conjecture. Hales' proof is a proof by exhaustion involving checking of many individual cases using complex computer calculations. Referees said that they were "99% certain" of the correctness of Hales' proof. On 10 August 2014 Hales announced the completion of a formal proof using automated proof checking, removing any doubt. [3]

### Other common lattice packings

Some other lattice packings are often found in physical systems. These include the cubic lattice with a density of ${\displaystyle {\frac {\pi }{6}}\approx 0.5236}$, the hexagonal lattice with a density of ${\displaystyle {\frac {\pi }{3{\sqrt {3}}}}\approx 0.6046}$ and the tetrahedral lattice with a density of ${\displaystyle {\frac {\pi {\sqrt {3}}}{16}}\approx 0.3401}$, and loosest possible at a density of 0.0555. [4]

### Jammed packings with a low density

Packings where all spheres are constrained by their neighbours to stay in one location are called rigid or jammed. The strictly jammed sphere packing with the lowest density is a diluted ("tunneled") fcc crystal with a density of only 0.49365. [5]

## Irregular packing

If we attempt to build a densely packed collection of spheres, we will be tempted to always place the next sphere in a hollow between three packed spheres. If five spheres are assembled in this way, they will be consistent with one of the regularly packed arrangements described above. However, the sixth sphere placed in this way will render the structure inconsistent with any regular arrangement. This results in the possibility of a random close packing of spheres which is stable against compression. [6] Vibration of a random loose packing can result in the arrangement of spherical particles into regular packings, a process known as granular crystallisation. Such processes depend on the geometry of the container holding the spherical grains. [1]

When spheres are randomly added to a container and then compressed, they will generally form what is known as an "irregular" or "jammed" packing configuration when they can be compressed no more. This irregular packing will generally have a density of about 64%. Recent research predicts analytically that it cannot exceed a density limit of 63.4% [7] This situation is unlike the case of one or two dimensions, where compressing a collection of 1-dimensional or 2-dimensional spheres (that is, line segments or circles) will yield a regular packing.

## Hypersphere packing

The sphere packing problem is the three-dimensional version of a class of ball-packing problems in arbitrary dimensions. In two dimensions, the equivalent problem is packing circles on a plane. In one dimension it is packing line segments into a linear universe. [8]

In dimensions higher than three, the densest regular packings of hyperspheres are known up to 8 dimensions. [9] Very little is known about irregular hypersphere packings; it is possible that in some dimensions the densest packing may be irregular. Some support for this conjecture comes from the fact that in certain dimensions (e.g. 10) the densest known irregular packing is denser than the densest known regular packing. [10]

In 2016, Maryna Viazovska announced a proof that the E8 lattice provides the optimal packing (regardless of regularity) in eight-dimensional space, [11] and soon afterwards she and a group of collaborators announced a similar proof that the Leech lattice is optimal in 24 dimensions. [12] This result built on and improved previous methods which showed that these two lattices are very close to optimal. [13] The new proofs involve using the Laplace transform of a carefully chosen modular function to construct a radially symmetric function f such that f and its Fourier transform both equal one at the origin, and both vanish at all other points of the optimal lattice, with f negative outside the central sphere of the packing and positive. Then, the Poisson summation formula for f is used to compare the density of the optimal lattice with that of any other packing. [14] Before the proof had been formally refereed and published, mathematician Peter Sarnak called the proof "stunningly simple" and wrote that "You just start reading the paper and you know this is correct." [15]

Another line of research in high dimensions is trying to find asymptotic bounds for the density of the densest packings. As of 2017, it is known that for large n, the densest lattice in dimension n has density between cn 2n (for some constant c) and 2−0.599n. [16] Conjectural bounds lie in between. [17]

## Unequal sphere packing

Many problems in the chemical and physical sciences can be related to packing problems where more than one size of sphere is available. Here there is a choice between separating the spheres into regions of close-packed equal spheres, or combining the multiple sizes of spheres into a compound or interstitial packing. When many sizes of spheres (or a distribution) are available, the problem quickly becomes intractable, but some studies of binary hard spheres (two sizes) are available.

When the second sphere is much smaller than the first, it is possible to arrange the large spheres in a close-packed arrangement, and then arrange the small spheres within the octahedral and tetrahedral gaps. The density of this interstitial packing depends sensitively on the radius ratio, but in the limit of extreme size ratios, the smaller spheres can fill the gaps with the same density as the larger spheres filled space. [19] Even if the large spheres are not in a close-packed arrangement, it is always possible to insert some smaller spheres of up to 0.29099 of the radius of the larger sphere. [20]

When the smaller sphere has a radius greater than 0.41421 of the radius of the larger sphere, it is no longer possible to fit into even the octahedral holes of the close-packed structure. Thus, beyond this point, either the host structure must expand to accommodate the interstitials (which compromises the overall density), or rearrange into a more complex crystalline compound structure. Structures are known which exceed the close packing density for radius ratios up to 0.659786. [18] [21]

Upper bounds for the density that can be obtained in such binary packings have also been obtained. [22]

In many chemical situations such as ionic crystals, the stoichiometry is constrained by the charges of the constituent ions. This additional constraint on the packing, together with the need to minimize the Coulomb energy of interacting charges leads to a diversity of optimal packing arrangements.

## Hyperbolic space

Although the concept of circles and spheres can be extended to hyperbolic space, finding the densest packing becomes much more difficult. In a hyperbolic space there is no limit to the number of spheres that can surround another sphere (for example, Ford circles can be thought of as an arrangement of identical hyperbolic circles in which each circle is surrounded by an infinite number of other circles). The concept of average density also becomes much more difficult to define accurately. The densest packings in any hyperbolic space are almost always irregular. [23]

Despite this difficulty, K. Böröczky gives a universal upper bound for the density of sphere packings of hyperbolic n-space where n  2. [24] In three dimensions the Böröczky bound is approximately 85.327613%, and is realized by the horosphere packing of the order-6 tetrahedral honeycomb with Schläfli symbol {3,3,6}. [25] In addition to this configuration at least three other horosphere packings are known to exist in hyperbolic 3-space that realize the density upper bound. [26]

## Touching pairs, triplets, and quadruples

The contact graph of an arbitrary finite packing of unit balls is the graph whose vertices correspond to the packing elements and whose two vertices are connected by an edge if the corresponding two packing elements touch each other. The cardinality of the edge set of the contact graph gives the number of touching pairs, the number of 3-cycles in the contact graph gives the number of touching triplets, and the number of tetrahedrons in the contact graph gives the number of touching quadruples (in general for a contact graph associated with a sphere packing in n dimensions that the cardinality of the set of n-simplices in the contact graph gives the number of touching (n + 1)-tuples in the sphere packing). In the case of 3-dimensional Euclidean space, non-trivial upper bounds on the number of touching pairs, triplets, and quadruples [27] were proved by Karoly Bezdek and Samuel Reid at the University of Calgary.

The problem of finding the arrangement of n identical spheres that maximizes the number of contact points between the spheres is known as the "sticky-sphere problem". The maximum is known for n ≤ 11, and only conjectural values are known for larger n. [28]

## Other spaces

Sphere packing on the corners of a hypercube (with the spheres defined by Hamming distance) corresponds to designing error-correcting codes: if the spheres have radius t, then their centers are codewords of a (2t + 1)-error-correcting code. Lattice packings correspond to linear codes. There are other, subtler relationships between Euclidean sphere packing and error-correcting codes. For example, the binary Golay code is closely related to the 24-dimensional Leech lattice.

For further details on these connections, see the book Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups by Conway and Sloane. [29]

## Related Research Articles

In geometry, the rhombicuboctahedron, or small rhombicuboctahedron, is an Archimedean solid with eight triangular and eighteen square faces. There are 24 identical vertices, with one triangle and three squares meeting at each one. The polyhedron has octahedral symmetry, like the cube and octahedron. Its dual is called the deltoidal icositetrahedron or trapezoidal icositetrahedron, although its faces are not really true trapezoids.

Packing problems are a class of optimization problems in mathematics that involve attempting to pack objects together into containers. The goal is to either pack a single container as densely as possible or pack all objects using as few containers as possible. Many of these problems can be related to real life packaging, storage and transportation issues. Each packing problem has a dual covering problem, which asks how many of the same objects are required to completely cover every region of the container, where objects are allowed to overlap.

In mathematics, the Leech lattice is an even unimodular lattice Λ24 in 24-dimensional Euclidean space, which is one of the best models for the kissing number problem. It was discovered by John Leech (1967). It may also have been discovered by Ernst Witt in 1940.

The Kepler conjecture, named after the 17th-century mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, is a mathematical theorem about sphere packing in three-dimensional Euclidean space. It states that no arrangement of equally sized spheres filling space has a greater average density than that of the cubic close packing and hexagonal close packing arrangements. The density of these arrangements is around 74.05%.

Discrete geometry and combinatorial geometry are branches of geometry that study combinatorial properties and constructive methods of discrete geometric objects. Most questions in discrete geometry involve finite or discrete sets of basic geometric objects, such as points, lines, planes, circles, spheres, polygons, and so forth. The subject focuses on the combinatorial properties of these objects, such as how they intersect one another, or how they may be arranged to cover a larger object.

In geometry, the kissing number of a mathematical space is defined as the greatest number of non-overlapping unit spheres that can be arranged in that space such that they each touch a common unit sphere. For a given sphere packing in a given space, a kissing number can also be defined for each individual sphere as the number of spheres it touches. For a lattice packing the kissing number is the same for every sphere, but for an arbitrary sphere packing the kissing number may vary from one sphere to another.

In geometry, close-packing of equal spheres is a dense arrangement of congruent spheres in an infinite, regular arrangement. Carl Friedrich Gauss proved that the highest average density – that is, the greatest fraction of space occupied by spheres – that can be achieved by a lattice packing is

Hilbert's eighteenth problem is one of the 23 Hilbert problems set out in a celebrated list compiled in 1900 by mathematician David Hilbert. It asks three separate questions about lattices and sphere packing in Euclidean space.

László Fejes Tóth was a Hungarian mathematician who specialized in geometry. He proved that a lattice pattern is the most efficient way to pack centrally symmetric convex sets on the Euclidean plane. He also investigated the sphere packing problem. He was the first to show, in 1953, that proof of the Kepler conjecture can be reduced to a finite case analysis and, later, that the problem might be solved using a computer.

In four-dimensional Euclidean geometry, the 16-cell honeycomb is one of the three regular space-filling tessellations, represented by Schläfli symbol {3,3,4,3}, and constructed by a 4-dimensional packing of 16-cell facets, three around every face.

In geometry, circle packing is the study of the arrangement of circles on a given surface such that no overlapping occurs and so that no circle can be enlarged without creating an overlap. The associated packing density, η, of an arrangement is the proportion of the surface covered by the circles. Generalisations can be made to higher dimensions – this is called sphere packing, which usually deals only with identical spheres.

In geometry, tetrahedron packing is the problem of arranging identical regular tetrahedra throughout three-dimensional space so as to fill the maximum possible fraction of space.

In polyhedral combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, Steinitz's theorem is a characterization of the undirected graphs formed by the edges and vertices of three-dimensional convex polyhedra: they are exactly the 3-vertex-connected planar graphs. That is, every convex polyhedron forms a 3-connected planar graph, and every 3-connected planar graph can be represented as the graph of a convex polyhedron. For this reason, the 3-connected planar graphs are also known as polyhedral graphs.​

The smoothed octagon is a region in the plane found by Karl Reinhardt in 1934 and conjectured by him to have the lowest maximum packing density of the plane of all centrally symmetric convex shapes. It was also independently discovered by Kurt Mahler in 1947. It is constructed by replacing the corners of a regular octagon with a section of a hyperbola that is tangent to the two sides adjacent to the corner and asymptotic to the sides adjacent to these.

In geometry, Keller's conjecture is the conjecture that in any tiling of n-dimensional Euclidean space by identical hypercubes, there are two hypercubes that share an entire (n − 1)-dimensional face with each other. For instance, in any tiling of the plane by identical squares, some two squares must share an entire edge, as they do in the illustration.

Ulam's packing conjecture, named for Stanislaw Ulam, is a conjecture about the highest possible packing density of identical convex solids in three-dimensional Euclidean space. The conjecture says that the optimal density for packing congruent spheres is smaller than that for any other convex body. That is, according to the conjecture, the ball is the convex solid which forces the largest fraction of space to remain empty in its optimal packing structure. This conjecture is therefore related to the Kepler conjecture about sphere packing. Since the solution to the Kepler conjecture establishes that identical balls must leave ≈25.95% of the space empty, Ulam's conjecture is equivalent to the statement that no other convex solid forces that much space to be left empty.

In mathematics, especially in geometry, a double lattice in n is a discrete subgroup of the group of Euclidean motions that consists only of translations and point reflections and such that the subgroup of translations is a lattice. The orbit of any point under the action of a double lattice is a union of two Bravais lattices, related to each other by a point reflection. A double lattice in two dimensions is a p2 wallpaper group. In three dimensions, a double lattice is a space group of the type 1, as denoted by international notation.

Maryna Sergiivna Viazovska is a Ukrainian mathematician known for her work in sphere packing. She is currently full professor at the Chair of Number Theory at the Institute of Mathematics of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

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A non-technical overview of packing in hyperbolic space.