Stick number of non-paneled knotless spatial graphs (Q2194522)

A graph embedded in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is said to be paneled if every cycle in the graph bounds a disk whose interior is disjoint from the graph. The non-paneled knotless stick number of a graph is the minimum number of sticks required to create an embedding of the graph which is not paneled and yet contains no knots. In this paper the authors are interested in the non-paneled knotless stick number of complete graphs. It is known that \(K_3\) is paneled if and only if it is knotless, and every embedding of \(K_n\) with \(n \ge 7\) contains a non-trivial knot. Moreover the non-paneled knotless stick number of \(K_6\) is 15. So the only complete graphs whose non-paneled knotless stick number is unknown are \(K_4\) and \(K_5\). The authors show that the minimum number of sticks required to construct a non-paneled knotless embedding of \(K_4\) is 8 and of \(K_5\) is 12 or 13. Using the results about \(K_4\) the authors show that the probability that a random linear embedding of \(K_{3,3}\) in a cube is in the form of a Möbius ladder is \(0.97380 \pm 0.00003\), and offer this as a possible explanation for why \(K_{3,3}\) subgraphs of metalloproteins occur primarily in this form.