Orthogonal colorings of the sphere

DOI10.1112/S0025579315000303zbMATH Open1337.05041arXiv1505.02514OpenAlexW3099951616MaRDI QIDQ2810736FDOQ2810736

Andreas Holmsen, Seunghun Lee

Publication date: 6 June 2016

Published in: Mathematika (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: An orthogonal coloring of the two-dimensional unit sphere $mathbb{S}^2$, is a partition of $mathbb{S}^2$ into parts such that no part contains a pair of orthogonal points, that is, a pair of points at spherical distance $pi/2$ apart. It is a well-known result that an orthogonal coloring of $mathbb{S}^2$ requires at least four parts, and orthogonal colorings with exactly four parts can easily be constructed from a regular octahedron centered at the origin. An intriguing question is whether or not every orthogonal 4-coloring of $mathbb{S}^2$ is such an octahedral coloring. In this paper we address this question and show that if every color class has a non-empty interior, then the coloring is octahedral. Some related results are also given.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1505.02514

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zbMATH Keywords

regular octahedron

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Vertex subsets with special properties (dominating sets, independent sets, cliques, etc.) (05C69) Coloring of graphs and hypergraphs (05C15) Erd?s problems and related topics of discrete geometry (52C10)

Cites Work

• The realization of distances in measurable subsets covering \(R^ n\).
• Coloring Distance Graphs and Graphs of Diameters
• The Mathematical Coloring Book
• On the chromatic numbers of spheres in \(\mathbb R^n\)
• Two simple proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem
• Axiom of choice and chromatic number of the plane
• Distances realized by sets covering the plane
• Axiom of choice and chromatic number: Examples on the plane
• Projective colorings

Cited In (1)

• Orthogonal colorings of graphs

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