Frameworks with crystallographic symmetry

Abstract

Periodic frameworks with crystallographic symmetry are investigated from the perspective of a general deformation theory of periodic bar-and-joint structures in Euclidean spaces of arbitrary dimension. It is shown that natural parametrizations provide affine section descriptions for families of frameworks with a specified graph and symmetry. A simple geometrical setting for displacive phase transitions is obtained. Upper bounds are derived for the number of realizations of minimally rigid periodic graphs. © 2013 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society.