Dehn colorings and vertex-weight invariants for spatial graphs (Q2072113)

The article under review is concerned with spatial graphs i.e., graphs with knotted edges. The diagrams of these graphs give rise to regions which are the connected components of the complement of the diagram in the projection plane. For a spatial graph whose vertices have even valence (spatial Euler graphs), a Dehn \(p\)-coloring is an assignment of integers (mod \(p\)) to each region such that conditions on the colors are met for the four regions adjacent to each crossing; the counting of Dehn \(p\)-colorings is then a spatial Euler graph invariant. In the article under review, the authors introduce a family of invariants for spatial Euler graphs which are enhancements of Dehn colorings. They show that one of these enhancements is able to distinguish particular pairs of spatial Euler graphs which are not distinguished by counting of Dehn colorings alone. They also describe a way of adapting the invariants of spatial Euler graphs referred to above, in order to obtain invariants for spatial graphs.