English

The edge-flipping group of a graph

Combinatorics 2009-10-30 v2

Abstract

Let X=(V,E)X=(V,E) be a finite simple connected graph with nn vertices and mm edges. A configuration is an assignment of one of two colors, black or white, to each edge of X.X. A move applied to a configuration is to select a black edge ϵE\epsilon\in E and change the colors of all adjacent edges of ϵ.\epsilon. Given an initial configuration and a final configuration, try to find a sequence of moves that transforms the initial configuration into the final configuration. This is the edge-flipping puzzle on X,X, and it corresponds to a group action. This group is called the edge-flipping group WE(X)\mathbf{W}_E(X) of X.X. This paper shows that if XX has at least three vertices, WE(X)\mathbf{W}_E(X) is isomorphic to a semidirect product of (Z/2Z)k(\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})^k and the symmetric group SnS_n of degree n,n, where k=(n1)(mn+1)k=(n-1)(m-n+1) if nn is odd, k=(n2)(mn+1)k=(n-2)(m-n+1) if nn is even, and Z\mathbb{Z} is the additive group of integers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0809.4399,
  title  = {The edge-flipping group of a graph},
  author = {Hau-wen Huang and Chih-wen Weng},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.4399},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

19 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:24:09.031Z