Rigid pentagons in hypercubes

Abstract

Two sets of vertices of a hypercubes in Rⁿ and R^m are said to be equivalent if there exists a distance preserving linear transformation of one hypercube into the other taking one set to the other. A set of vertices of a hypercube is said to be weakly rigid if up to equivalence it is a unique realization of its distance pattern and it is called rigid if the same holds for any multiple of its distance pattern. A method of describing all rigid and weakly rigid sets of vertices of hypercube of a given size is developed. It is also shown that distance pattern of any rigid set is on the face of convex cone of all distance patterns of sets of vertices in hypercubes. Rigid pentagons (i.e. rigid sets of size 5 in hypercubes) are described. It is shown that there are exactly seven distinct types of rigid pentagons and one type of rigid quadrangle. It is also shown that there is a unique weakly rigid pentagon which is not rigid. An application to the study of all rigid pentagons and quadrangles in L¹ having integral distance pattern is also given.