Isostatic bar and joint frameworks in the plane with irreducible pure conditions (Q1337671)

A plane bar and joint framework \(F\) is called isostatic, if it is infinitesimally rigid and if the deletion of any arbitrary bar makes it infinitesimally flexible. A graph \(G\) is called generically isostatic if it has a realization as an isostatic bar and joint framework in the plane. Realizations of the same graph as infinitesimally flexible frameworks are called special positions. According to \textit{N. L. White} and \textit{W. Whiteley} [SIAM J. Algebraic Discrete Methods 4, 481-511 (1983; Zbl 0542.51022)] the special positions of an isostatic graph \(G\) are described by only one polynomial equation for the coordinates of the joints, the so-called pure condition \(C(G)\) of \(G\). For an isostatic subgraph \(G'\) of \(G\), \(C(G')\) has been shown to be a factor of \(C(G)\) (loc. cit.). This paper contributes to the study of the connection between the combinatorial structure of an isostatic graph and the decomposition of its pure condition into irreducible factors. For this purpose the authors introduces the notion of a minimal isostatic graph \(G\), i.e. \(G\) does not contain any non-obvious isostatic subgraph. Such a graph is shown to have an irreducible pure condition \(C(G)\), if the number of vertices is not more than eight. Using a triangle-free version of Henneberg's edge splitting construction [see \textit{T.-S. Tay} and \textit{W. Whiteley}, Topologie Struct. 11, 21-69 (1985; Zbl 0574.51025)] the number of vertices of an isostatic minimal graph is increased by one without loosing the irreducibility of the pure condition. This construction cannot be applied to each minimal isostatic graph. But the author presents an infinite family of such graphs where the constructions can be applied, and this is used to establish the existence of a minimal isostatic graph for each number of vertices \(v\neq 4\), 5 and 7.