English

In Most 6-regular Toroidal Graphs All 5-colorings are Kempe Equivalent

Combinatorics 2022-07-07 v4

Abstract

A Kempe swap in a proper coloring interchanges the colors on some maximal connected 2-colored subgraph. Two kk-colorings are kk-equivalent if we can transform one into the other using Kempe swaps. The triangulated toroidal grid, T[m×n]T[m\times n], is formed from (a toroidal embedding of) the Cartesian product of CmC_m and CnC_n by adding parallel diagonals inside all 4-faces. Mohar and Salas showed that not all 4-colorings of T[m×n]T[m\times n] are 4-equivalent. In contrast, Bonamy, Bousquet, Feghali, and Johnson showed that all 6-colorings of T[m×n]T[m\times n] are 6-equivalent. They asked whether the same is true for 5-colorings. We answer their question affirmatively when m,n6m,n\ge 6. Further, we show that if GG is 6-regular with a toroidal embedding where every non-contractible cycle has length at least 7, then all 5-colorings of GG are 5-equivalent. Our results relate to the antiferromagnetic Pott's model in statistical mechanics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.07948,
  title  = {In Most 6-regular Toroidal Graphs All 5-colorings are Kempe Equivalent},
  author = {Daniel W. Cranston and Reem Mahmoud},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.07948},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

17 pages, 16 figures; 4th version incorporates minor referee feedback; to appear in European Journal of Combinatorics