Comparing different approaches to model the atomic structure of a ternary decagonal quasicrystal

It is shown that the covering approach with a single decagonal prototile ca n be transformed into a hexagon, boat and star tiling. Particularly the ato mic decoration recently proposed by Cockayne and Widom (Phys. Rev. Lett. 81 (1998) 598-601) as a structure model for the decagonal phase is investigat ed. There, conflicts with the prototile approach arise which are due to spe cific peculiarities of the decoration. The above model is compared with rec ent experimental images which give strong support to its main features, but contradict competing structure proposals. The implications for the stabili zation mechanism are discussed.