Tile Hamiltonian for Decagonal AlCoCu

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A tile Hamiltonian (TH) replaces the actual atomic interactions in a quasicrystal with effective interactions between and within tiles. We studied Al-Co-Cu decagonal quasicrystals described as decorated Hexagon-Boat-Star (HBS) tiles using ab-initio methods. The dominant term in the TH counts the number of H, B and S tiles. Phason flips that replace an HS pair with a BB pair lower the energy. In Penrose tilings, quasiperiodicity is forced by arrow matching rules on tile edges. The edge arrow orientation in our model of AlCoCu is due to Co/Cu chemical ordering. Tile edges meet in vertices with 72∘ or 144∘ angles. We find strong interactions between edge orientations at 72∘ vertices that force a type of matching rule. Interactions at 144∘ vertices are somewhat weaker.