English

A Note on $4$-colorings of Quadrangulations

Combinatorics 2016-05-17 v1

Abstract

Let GG be a quadrangulation on an orientable surface and let gg be a proper vertex-44-coloring of GG. A face FF of GG is said to be a rainbow-face if all four distinct colors appear on its boundary. A (c1,c2,c3,c4)(c_1,c_2,c_3,c_4)-face in GG is a rainbow face with colors cic_i, i=1,2,3,4i=1,2,3,4 on the boundary in clockwise order. We show that the number of (c1,c2,c3,c4)(c_1,c_2,c_3,c_4)-faces in GG equals the number of (c4,c3,c2,c1)(c_4,c_3,c_2,c_1)-faces. This implies in particular that the number of rainbow-faces of GG is even.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1605.04441,
  title  = {A Note on $4$-colorings of Quadrangulations},
  author = {Arthur Hoffmann-Ostenhof and Atsuhiro Nakamoto},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.04441},
  year   = {2016}
}