Are there any aperiodic tilings of an infinite cylinder

combinatoricsreference-requesttiling

Aperiodic tilings for the plane are quite popular. I can't find any papers on aperiodic tilings on infinite surfaces like a cylinder. One reason might be that these are no longer called tiles but something else (a curved finite surface).

Do references for this exist?

Periodic tilings of cylinder can easily be accomplished with a machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knurling

A lathe machine has parts that rotate and easily create a periodic pattern that has one tile type. Not sure if there exists a machine that would do it with multiple tile types.

My end goal is to find a similar method to aperiodically tile a cylinder. At least one part of rotation would have to exhibit aperiodic behavior, but I leave that outside of the scope of this question.

Best Answer

Tilings of the recently discovered aperiodic monotile are "embedded" (not sure if that is the correct word) in a periodic hexagonal tiling. Figure 1.1 from that paper shows that it is possible to cut such an aperiodic tiling into an infinite strip and wrap the strip into a cylinder (for example, I have added two red lines to show a possible strip).

aperiodic monotile tiling cut into strip

Since the original tile is of finite size, consisting of exactly 16 half-equilateral triangles joined together, and the strip width is chosen in harmony with the periodic tiling, after wrapping (as long as the strip is wide enough), there will only be a finite set of additional tile shapes created by this process, even if in locations where on both side of the strip there are partial tiles which are merged (into tiles of up to 30 half-equilateral triangles). All the tiles after wrapping will also be collections of half-equilateral triangles. This means that yes, such tilings exist. (I admit it's not elegant, but it works, as far as I can see. However, since extra tile shapes have been added, the proof from the original paper that the tiling is necessarily aperiodic no longer applies, i.e., the new set of tiles may very well also allow a periodic tiling.)

Actually, based on Dan Rust's answer, it is impossible that there would be a set of tiles which could only tile aperiodically, because the cylinder can effectively be "reduced" to a one-dimensional line (see the discussion, there).

Interestingly, if the $y=0$ line (perpendicular to the cut lines) is also chosen in harmony with the hexagonal tiling, this technique also produces an aperiodic tiling of the infinite "Moebius strip" produced when one of the two sides of the strip is inverted through the $y=0$ line before joining the two sides. (For almost the same reason as for the cylinder, there cannot be an aperiodic set of tiles, because the infinite Moebius strip can be "reduced" to $\mathbb{R}^{+}$.)