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arXiv · 2210.17105

Reconfiguration of colorings in triangulations of the sphere

Takehiro Ito·Yuni Iwamasa·Yusuke Kobayashi·Shun-ichi Maezawa·Yuta Nozaki·Yoshio Okamoto·Kenta Ozeki
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Abstract

In 1973, Fisk proved that any $4$-coloring of a $3$-colorable triangulation of the $2$-sphere can be obtained from any $3$-coloring by a sequence of Kempe-changes. On the other hand, in the case where we are only allowed to recolor a single vertex in each step, which is a special case of a Kempe-change, there exists a $4$-coloring that cannot be obtained from any $3$-coloring. In this paper, we present a characterization of a $4$-coloring of a $3$-colorable triangulation of the $2$-sphere that can be obtained from a $3$-coloring by a sequence of recoloring operations at single vertices, and a criterion for a $3$-colorable triangulation of the $2$-sphere that all $4$-colorings can be obtained from a $3$-coloring by such a sequence. Moreover, our first result can be generalized to a high-dimensional case, in which ``$4$-coloring,'' ``$3$-colorable,'' and ``$2$-sphere'' above are replaced with ``$k$-coloring,'' ``$(k-1)$-colorable,'' and ``$(k-2)$-sphere'' for $k \geq 4$, respectively. In addition, we show that the problem of deciding whether, for given two $(k+1)$-colorings, one can be obtained from the other by such a sequence is PSPACE-complete for any fixed $k \geq 4$. Our results above can be rephrased as new results on the computational problems named {\sc $k$-Recoloring} and {\sc Connectedness of $k$-Coloring Reconfiguration Graph}, which are fundamental problems in the field of combinatorial reconfiguration.

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Takehiro Ito, Yuni Iwamasa, Yusuke Kobayashi, Shun-ichi Maezawa, Yuta Nozaki, Yoshio Okamoto, Kenta Ozeki. 2022-10-31. Reconfiguration of colorings in triangulations of the sphere. https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.17105

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