Disk-like Tiles Derived from Complex Bases

For each positive integer k, the radix representation of the complex numbers in the base –k+i gives rise to a lattice self-affine tile T _k in the plane, which consists of all the complex numbers that can be expressed in the form ∑ _j≥1 d _j (–k+i)^–j , where d _j ∈{0, 1, 2, ...,k ²}. We prove that T _k is homeomorphic to the closed unit disk {z∈C:∣z∣ ≤ 1} if and only if k ≠ 2. The first author is supported by Youth Project of Tianyuan Foundation (10226031) and Zhongshan University Promotion Foundation for Young Teachers (34100-1131206); the second author is supported by National Science Foundation (10041005) and Guangdong Province Science Foundation (011221)