English

Nucleation-free $3D$ rigidity

Computational Geometry 2013-11-20 v1 Combinatorics Metric Geometry

Abstract

When all non-edge distances of a graph realized in Rd\mathbb{R}^{d} as a {\em bar-and-joint framework} are generically {\em implied} by the bar (edge) lengths, the graph is said to be {\em rigid} in Rd\mathbb{R}^{d}. For d=3d=3, characterizing rigid graphs, determining implied non-edges and {\em dependent} edge sets remains an elusive, long-standing open problem. One obstacle is to determine when implied non-edges can exist without non-trivial rigid induced subgraphs, i.e., {\em nucleations}, and how to deal with them. In this paper, we give general inductive construction schemes and proof techniques to generate {\em nucleation-free graphs} (i.e., graphs without any nucleation) with implied non-edges. As a consequence, we obtain (a) dependent graphs in 3D3D that have no nucleation; and (b) 3D3D nucleation-free {\em rigidity circuits}, i.e., minimally dependent edge sets in d=3d=3. It additionally follows that true rigidity is strictly stronger than a tractable approximation to rigidity given by Sitharam and Zhou \cite{sitharam:zhou:tractableADG:2004}, based on an inductive combinatorial characterization. As an independently interesting byproduct, we obtain a new inductive construction for independent graphs in 3D3D. Currently, very few such inductive constructions are known, in contrast to 2D2D.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1311.4859,
  title  = {Nucleation-free $3D$ rigidity},
  author = {Jialong Cheng and Meera Sitharam and Ileana Streinu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.4859},
  year   = {2013}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T02:10:44.037Z