Bijective counting of plane bipolar orientations and Schnyder woods (Q1039437)

The authors introduce a bijection \(\Phi\) between plane bipolar orientations with prescribed numbers of vertices and faces, and non-intersecting triples of upright lattice paths with prescribed extremities, this bijection provides a combinatorial proof of the following formula due to Baxter [\textit{R.J. Baxter}, ``Dichromatic polynomials and Potts models summed over rooted maps'', Ann. Comb. 5, No.\,1, 17--36 (2001; Zbl 0983.05041)] for the number \(\Theta_{ij}\) of plane bipolar orientations with \(i\) non-polar vertices and \(j\) inner faces: \[ \Theta_{ij}=2\frac{(i+j)! (i+j+1)! (i+j+2)!}{i! (i+1)! (i+2)! j! (j+1)! (j+2)!}. \] It is also shown that \(\Phi\) specializes into the bijection of Bernardi and Bonichon between Schnyder woods and non-crossing pairs of Dyck words.