2-dimensional unit vector flows

Abstract

We study $2$-dimensional unit vector flows on graphs, that is, nowhere-zero flows that assign to each oriented edge a unit vector in $\mathbb R^{3}$. We give a new geometric characterization of $\mathbb S^{2}$-flows on cubic graphs. We also prove that the class of cubic graphs admitting an $\mathbb S^{2}$-flow is closed under a natural composition operation, which yields further constructions; in particular, blowing up a vertex into a triangle preserves the existence of an $\mathbb S^{2}$-flow. Our second contribution is algebraic: we extend the rank-based approach of [SIAM J. Discrete Math., 29 (2015), pp.~2166--2178] from $\mathbb S^{1}$-flows to $\mathbb S^{2}$-flows. More precisely, we show that if an $\mathbb S^{2}$-flow $\varphi$ satisfies $\operatorname{rank}(S_{\mathbb{Q}}(\varphi))\le 2$ and $S_{\mathbb{Q}}(\varphi)$ is odd-coordinate-free, then the graph admits a nowhere-zero $4$-flow.