New dense superball packings in three dimensions

Abstract

In this paper we construct a new family of lattice packings for superballs in three dimensions (unit balls for the $l_3^p$ norm) with $p\in (1,1.58]$. We conjecture that the family also exists for $p\in (1.58,{\log }_{2}3=1.5849625\dots ]$. Like in the densest lattice packing of regular octahedra, each superball in our family of lattice packings has $14$ neighbors.

11 pages, 4 tables, 1 figure