Characterisation and classification of signatures of spanning trees of the n-cube

MaRDI QIDQ5206928zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Howida Adel Alfran, Christopher Tuffley, D. J. W. Simpson

Publication date 19 December 2019

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.11183, http://ajc.maths.uq.edu.au/pdf/75/ajc_v75_p259.pdf

zbMATH Keywords

edge slide graphsirreducible signaturereducible signature

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Trees (05C05) Signed and weighted graphs (05C22)

Abstract: The signature of a spanning tree $T$ of the $n$-cube $Q_n$ is the $n$-tuple $mathrmsig(T)=(a_1,a_2,dots,a_n)$ such that $a_i$ is the number of edges of $T$ in the $i$th direction. We characterise the $n$-tuples that can occur as the signature of a spanning tree, and classify a signature $mathcalS$ as reducible or irreducible according to whether or not there is a proper nonempty subset $R$ of $[n]$ such that restricting $mathcalS$ to the indices in $R$ gives a signature of $Q_{|R|}$. If so, we say moreover that $mathcalS$ and $T$ reduce over $R$. We show that reducibility places strict structural constraints on $T$. In particular, if $T$ reduces over a set of size $r$ then $T$ decomposes as a sum of $2^r$ spanning trees of $Q_{n-r}$, together with a spanning tree of a contraction of $Q_n$ with underlying simple graph $Q_r$. Moreover, this decomposition is realised by an isomorphism of edge slide graphs, where the edge slide graph of $Q_n$ is the graph $mathcalE(Q_n)$ on the spanning trees of $Q_n$, with an edge between two trees if and only if they are related by an edge slide. An edge slide is an operation on spanning trees of the $n$-cube given by ``sliding an edge of a spanning tree across a $2$-dimensional face of the cube to get a second spanning tree. The signature of a spanning tree is invariant under edge slides, so the subgraph $mathcalE(mathcalS)$ of $mathcalE(Q_n)$ induced by the trees with signature $mathcalS$ is a union of one or more connected components of $mathcalE(Q_n)$. Reducible signatures may be further divided into strictly reducible and quasi-irreducible signatures, and as an application of our results we show that $mathcalE(mathcalS)$ is disconnected if $mathcalS$ is strictly reducible. We conjecture that the converse is also true.

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