Chip-firing based methods in the Riemann--Roch theory of directed graphs

Abstract

Baker and Norine proved a Riemann--Roch theorem for divisors on undirected graphs. The notions of graph divisor theory are in duality with the notions of the chip-firing game of Bj\"orner, Lov\'asz and Shor. We use this connection to prove Riemann--Roch-type results on directed graphs. We give a simple proof for a Riemann--Roch inequality on Eulerian directed graphs, improving a result of Amini and Manjunath. We also study possibilities and impossibilities of Riemann--Roch-type equalities in strongly connected digraphs and give examples. We intend to make the connections of this theory to graph theoretic notions more explicit via using the chip-firing framework.