Matchgate signatures under variable permutations

Abstract

In this article, we give a sufficient and necessary condition for determining whether a matchgate signature retains its property under a certain variable permutation, which can be checked in polynomial time. We also define the concept of permutable matchgate signatures, and use it to erase the gap between Pl-\#CSP and \#CSP on planar graphs in the previous study. We provide a detailed characterization of permutable matchgate signatures as well, by presenting their relation to symmetric matchgate signatures. In addition, we prove a dichotomy for Pl-$\#R_D$-CSP where $D\ge 3$ is an integer.