An upper bound of the density for packing of congruent hyperballs in hyperbolic $$3-$$space

Abstract

In Szirmai (Ars Math Contemp 16:349–358, 2019) we proved that to each saturated congruent hyperball packing there exists a decomposition of the 3-dimensional hyperbolic space $$\mathbb {H}^3$$ H 3 into truncated tetrahedra. Therefore, in order to get a density upper bound for hyperball packings, it is sufficient to determine the density upper bound of hyperball packings in truncated simplices. In this paper we prove, using the above results and results of the papers Miyamoto (Topology 33(4): 613–629, 1994) and Szirmai (Mat Vesn 70(3): 211–221, 2018), that the density upper bound of the saturated congruent hyperball (hypersphere) packings related to the corresponding truncated tetrahedron cells is realized in regular truncated tetrahedra with density $$\approx 0.86338$$ ≈ 0.86338 . Furthermore, we prove that the density of locally optimal congruent hyperball arrangement in a regular truncated tetrahedron is not a monotonically increasing function of the height (radius) of the corresponding optimal hyperball, unlike the ball (sphere) and horoball (horosphere) packings.