Nonemptiness Problems of Wang Cubes with Two Colors

Abstract

This investigation studies the nonemptiness problems of Wang cubes with two colors. Wang cubes are unit cubes with colored faces, which are generalized from Wang tiles. For a set $B$ of Wang cubs, $\Sigma(B)$ is the set of all global patterns on $\mathbb{Z}^3$ that can be constructed by the cubes in $B$. The nonemptiness problem is to determine whether $\Sigma(B) \neq \emptyset$ or not. Denote by $\mathcal{P}(B)$ the set of all periodic patterns on $\mathbb{Z}^3$ that can be constructed by the cubes in $B$. For Wang cubes, the corresponding Wang's conjecture is that if $\Sigma(B) \neq \emptyset$, then $\mathcal{P}(B) \neq \emptyset$.

We introduce the transition matrices and trace operators to determine whether $\Sigma(B) \neq \emptyset$ and $\mathcal{P}(B) \neq \emptyset$ or not, respectively. A basic set $B$ is called a minimal cycle generator if $\mathcal{P}(B) \neq \emptyset$ but $\mathcal{P}(B') = \emptyset$ for all $B' \subsetneqq B$. By computer computation, there exist $86$ equivalence classes of minimal cycle generators with two colors. By verifying that the basic sets $B$ that contains no minimal cycle generators satisfy $\Sigma(B) = \emptyset$, we prove that the Wang's conjecture for Wang cubes with two colors is true.