Background: Given a convex region C. One can define a graph corresponding to a planar arrangement of non overlapping congruent copies of C - each unit C is a node and an edge connects it to another node iff the two C units share some finite length of boundary. Such a graph is necessarily planar. As is well known, the average degree of such a planar graph can at most be 6.
Given any triangle, the intuitive (parallelogram based) tilings of the plane with it seem to correspond to graphs (defined above) with average degree = 3 or 4 - there appears a gap between these values and the maximum average degree of a planar graph (6).
Question: Can one have an infinite planar arrangement (not necessarily a tiling) with copies of some triangle where the average degree of the corresponding graph is between 4 and 6?
Note: With squares, it is easy to form a tiling with the corresponding graph having degree 6 at every node - the highest possible average degree - or 5 at each node.
Generalization: Given a convex 2D shape C, not necessarily one that tiles. Suppose one is also somehow given the planar arrangement(s) with infinite copies of C that maximizes the average degree of the corresponding graph. How good are these arrangements at achieving max packing density? And analogous questions may be raised in 3D.
Further thought: If one alters the above definition of the graph corresponding to an infinite non-overlapping layout with congruent copies of some convex C as: "nodes are C units as before but an edge connects two units if they even touch at a point", then, how can we upper bound the average degree of the graph for any convex C? (Note: as per this new definition, the graph won't be planar).
