Description of the combinatorial structure of algorithmically 1-parametric polyhedra of spherical type (Q1760545)

The paper deals with the theory of flexible polyhedra. The author studies the problem about the number of the parameters that should be specified additionally to the edge lengths for a polyhedron of a given combinatorial type in order to define its spatial shape uniquely. One of the main results reads that, for a sphere-homeomorphic polyhedron \(P\) in the Euclidean 3-space, the following conditions are equivalent to each other: (i) \(P\) is algorithmically \(0\)-parametric; (ii) \(P\) is 3-decomposable. Let's give necessary definitions. Denote by \(\Sigma_1\) the set of all tetrahedra in the Euclidean 3-space. If \(\Sigma_k\) is already defined, we say that a polyhedron \(Q\) belongs to \(\Sigma_{k+1}\) provided that there exists \(P\in\Sigma_k\), a face \(\sigma\subset P\), and a tetrahedron \(T\) such that \(\sigma\) is a face of \(T\), and if we replace \(\sigma\) by the three remaining faces of \(T\) we get \(Q\). A polyhedron \(P\) is called 3-decomposable if \(P\in\bigcup_{k\geq 1}\Sigma_k\). A polyhedron \(P\) is called \(p\)-parametric, \(p\geq 0\), if there is a set \(\Delta\) consisting of \(p\) diagonals of \(P\) such that if the lengths of theses diagonals are given, as well as the lengths of all edges of \(P\), the lengths of all other diagonals of \(P\) can be found using the following `standard support algorithm': if the vertices \(v_j\in P\), \(j=1,\dots, 5\), are such that all distances between the points of the set \(\{ v_1, v_2, v_3, v_4\}\), as well all distances between the points of the set \(\{ v_1, v_2, v_3, v_5\}\), are known initially or from previous computations then the distance between the points \(v_4\) and \(v_5\) can take no more than two values. The other main result reads as follows: A sphere-homeomorphic polyhedron \(P\) is algorithmically \(1\)-parametric if and only if the combinatorial structure of \(P\) is of one of the following types: (1) \(P\) is a tetrahedron; (2) \(P\) is a suspension; (3) \(P\) may be obtained by a special sequence of gluings of suspensions; (4) \(P\) is such that \((4_1)\) there is a cycle of three edges on it which is not the boundary of any face of \(P\) and \((4_2)\) decomposition of \(P\) by cutting along all such cycles produces at most one polyhedron of type 2 or 3 and some number of tetrahedra.