Genus Ranges of 4-Regular Rigid Vertex Graphs

  • Dorothy Buck
  • Egor Dolzhenko
  • Natasa Jonoska
  • Masahico Saito
  • Karin Valencia
Keywords: Four-regular rigid vertex graphs, realization of genus ranges, unsigned Gauss codes

Abstract

A rigid vertex of a graph is one that has a prescribed cyclic order of its incident edges. We study orientable genus ranges of 4-regular rigid vertex graphs. The (orientable) genus range is a set of genera values over all orientable surfaces into which a graph is embedded cellularly, and the embeddings of rigid vertex graphs are required to preserve the prescribed cyclic order of incident edges at every vertex. The genus ranges of 4-regular rigid vertex graphs are sets of consecutive integers, and we address two questions: which intervals of integers appear as genus ranges of such graphs, and what types of graphs realize a given genus range. For graphs with $2n$ vertices ($n>1$), we prove that all intervals $[a, b]$ for all $a<b \leq n$, and singletons $[h, h]$ for some $h\leq n$, are realized as genus ranges. For graphs with $2n-1$ vertices ($n\geq 1$), we prove that all intervals $[a, b]$ for all $a<b \leq n$ except $[0,n]$, and $[h,h]$ for some $h\leq n$, are realized as genus ranges. We also provide constructions of graphs that realize these ranges.

Published
2015-09-20
Article Number
P3.43