In geometry, the gyroelongated pentagonal pyramid is a polyhedron constructed by attaching a pentagonal antiprism to the base of a pentagonal pyramid. An alternative name is diminished icosahedron because it can be constructed by removing a pentagonal pyramid from a regular icosahedron.
The gyroelongated pentagonal pyramid can be constructed from a pentagonal antiprism by attaching a pentagonal pyramid onto its pentagonal face.[1] This pyramid covers the pentagonal faces, so the resulting polyhedron has 15 equilateral triangles and 1 regular pentagon as its faces.[2] Another way to construct it is started from the regular icosahedron by cutting off one of two pentagonal pyramids, a process known as diminishment; for this reason, it is also called the diminished icosahedron.[3] Because the resulting polyhedron has the property of convexity and its faces are regular polygons, the gyroelongated pentagonal pyramid is a Johnson solid, enumerated as the 11th Johnson solid J 11 {\displaystyle J_{11}} .[4] It is an example of composite polyhedron.[5]
The surface area of a gyroelongated pentagonal pyramid A {\displaystyle A} can be obtained by summing the area of 15 equilateral triangles and 1 regular pentagon. Its volume V {\displaystyle V} can be ascertained either by slicing it off into both a pentagonal antiprism and a pentagonal pyramid, after which adding them up; or by subtracting the volume of a regular icosahedron to a pentagonal pyramid. With edge length a {\displaystyle a} , they are:[2] A = 15 3 + 5 ( 5 + 2 5 ) 4 a 2 ≈ 8.215 a 2 , V = 25 + 9 5 24 a 3 ≈ 1.880 a 3 . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}A&={\frac {15{\sqrt {3}}+{\sqrt {5(5+2{\sqrt {5}})}}}{4}}a^{2}\approx 8.215a^{2},\\V&={\frac {25+9{\sqrt {5}}}{24}}a^{3}\approx 1.880a^{3}.\end{aligned}}}
It has the same three-dimensional symmetry group as the pentagonal pyramid: the cyclic group C 5 v {\displaystyle C_{5\mathrm {v} }} of order 10.[6] Its dihedral angle can be obtained by involving the angle of a pentagonal antiprism and pentagonal pyramid: its dihedral angle between triangle-to-pentagon is the pentagonal antiprism's angle between that 100.8°, and its dihedral angle between triangle-to-triangle is the pentagonal pyramid's angle 138.2°.[7]
According to Steinitz's theorem, the skeleton of a gyroelongated pentagonal pyramid can be represented in a planar graph with a 3-vertex connected. This graph is obtained by removing one of the icosahedral graph's vertices, an odd number of vertices of 11, resulting in a graph with a perfect matching. Hence, the graph is 2-vertex connected claw-free graph, an example of factor-critical.
The gyroelongated pentagonal pyramid has appeared in stereochemistry, wherein the shape resembles the molecular geometry known as capped pentagonal antiprism.[8][6]