“Color-Tripole Ice” as a Conceptual Generalization of “Spin Ice”

Figure 6

The trillium lattice cubic unit cell (from Figure 1 of [53]), together with a color-tripole crystal state defined on it, in the trumbbell approximation, in which the color tripole at the center of each equilateral triangle of the lattice is replaced by three color charges, one red (r), one green (g), and one blue (b), which are deposited on the three vertices of the triangle, as shown. At each vertex (or lattice site) there are three color charges deposited, by the three trumbbells located at the centers of the three equilateral triangles sharing this vertex. The chain of yellow arrows indicates the path for a blue-green swap line in this crystal state. The dashed parts are the periodic extension of the solid part.