The Y-triangle move does not preserve intrinsic knottedness (Q2482300)

A graph \(G\) is said to be intrinsically knotted or IK (resp. intrinsically linked or IL) if every embedding of \(G\) in \(\mathbb R^3\) contains a nontrivial knot (resp. a nontrivial link). {it H. Sachs} [Finite and infinite sets, 6th Hung. Combin. Colloq., Eger/Hung. 1981, Vol. II, Colloq. Math. Soc. János Bolyai 37, 649--662 (1984; Zbl 0568.05026)] and \textit{J. H. Conway} and \textit{C.McA. Gordon} [J. Graph Theory 7, 445--453 (1983; Zbl 0524.05028)] show that the complete graph \(K_6\) is IL; in the same paper, Conway-Gordon also show that the complete graph \(K_7\) is IK. On the other hand, a \textit{\(\Delta - Y\) move} on an abstract graph \(G\) consists of removing the edges of a 3-cycle \(abc\) in \(G\), and then adding a new vertex \(v\) and connecting it to each of the vertices \(a,b\) and \(c\). The reverse move is called a \textit{\(Y - \Delta \) move}. Despite \(\Delta -Y\) move is known to preserve intrinsic knottedness and intrinsic linkedness [see \textit{Motwani, Raghunathan} and \textit{Saran}, ``Constructive results from graph minors'', 29th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, IEEE, 398--409 (1988)], and \(Y - \Delta\) move is known to preserve intrinsic linkedness [see J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 64, No. 2, 185--227 (1995; Zbl 0832.05032)], it was an open question whether a \(Y - \Delta\) move on a IK graph always produces an IK graph, or not. The present paper proves the answer to be negative, by giving a knotless embedding of a graph \(G_7\) that is obtained from \(K_7\) by \(\Delta - Y\) and \(Y - \Delta\) moves.