Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2010
Denote by Bn the n-dimensional unit ball centred at o. It is known that in every lattice packing of Bn there is a cylindrical hole of infinite length whenever n≥3. As a counterpart, this note mainly proves the following result: for any fixed ε with ε>0, there exist a periodic point set P(n, ε) and a constant c(n, ε) such that Bn + P(n, ε) is a packing in Rn, and the length of the longest segment contained in Rn\{int(εBn) + P(n, ε)} is bounded by c(n, ε) from above. Generalizations and applications are presented.