Drawings of Complete Multipartite Graphs up to Triangle Flips

Oswin Aichholzer*, Man Kwun Chiu*, Hung P. Hoang*, Michael Hoffmann*, Jan Kynčl*, Yannic Maus*, Birgit Vogtenhuber*, Alexandra Weinberger*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference paperpeer-review

Abstract

For a drawing of a labeled graph, the rotation of a vertex or crossing is the cyclic order of its incident edges, represented by the labels of their other endpoints. The extended rotation system (ERS) of the drawing is the collection of the rotations of all vertices and crossings. A drawing is simple if each pair of edges has at most one common point. Gioan's Theorem states that for any two simple drawings of the complete graph Kn with the same crossing edge pairs, one drawing can be transformed into the other by a sequence of triangle flips (a.k.a. Reidemeister moves of Type 3). This operation refers to the act of moving one edge of a triangular cell formed by three pairwise crossing edges over the opposite crossing of the cell, via a local transformation. We investigate to what extent Gioan-type theorems can be obtained for wider classes of graphs. A necessary (but in general not sufficient) condition for two drawings of a graph to be transformable into each other by a sequence of triangle flips is that they have the same ERS. As our main result, we show that for the large class of complete multipartite graphs, this necessary condition is in fact also sufficient. We present two different proofs of this result, one of which is shorter, while the other one yields a polynomial time algorithm for which the number of needed triangle flips for graphs on n vertices is bounded by O(n16). The latter proof uses a Carathéodory-type theorem for simple drawings of complete multipartite graphs, which we believe to be of independent interest. Moreover, we show that our Gioan-type theorem for complete multipartite graphs is essentially tight in the following sense: For the complete bipartite graph Km, n minus two edges and Km, n plus one edge for any m, n ≥ 4, as well as Kn minus a 4-cycle for any n ≥ 5, there exist two simple drawings with the same ERS that cannot be transformed into each other using triangle flips. So having the same ERS does not remain sufficient when removing or adding very few edges.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication39th International Symposium on Computational Geometry, SoCG 2023
EditorsErin W. Chambers, Joachim Gudmundsson
PublisherSchloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik
ISBN (Electronic)9783959772730
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2023
Event39th International Symposium on Computational Geometry: SoCG 2023 - Dallas, United States
Duration: 12 Jun 202315 Jun 2023

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume258
ISSN (Print)1868-8969

Conference

Conference39th International Symposium on Computational Geometry
Abbreviated titleSoCG 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityDallas
Period12/06/2315/06/23

Keywords

  • bipartite graphs
  • complete graphs
  • Gioan's Theorem
  • k-partite graphs
  • multipartite graphs
  • Reidemeister moves
  • Simple drawings
  • simple topological graphs
  • triangle flips

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

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