Bollobás-Riordan and relative Tutte polynomials (Q500663)

This paper relates two graph polynomials; \textit{B. Bollobás} and \textit{O. Riordan}'s ribbon graph polynomial [Math. Ann. 323, No. 1, 81--96 (2002; Zbl 1004.05021)], and \textit{Y. Diao} and \textit{G. Hetyi}'s relative Tutte polynomial [Comb. Probab. Comput. 19, No. 3, 343--369 (2010; Zbl 1202.05064)]. To do this the authors describe a way to move between ribbon graphs, and plane graphs that have a distinguished set of edges. They then show that, under this translation, the Bollobás-Riordan of the ribbon graph, and the relative Tutte polynomial of the plane graph agree along two variable specialisations of the graph polynomials. The authors also present a duality formula for the relative Tutte polynomial and discuss its connections with virtual knot theory.