Hamiltonian Cycle Construction in Rectangular Grid Graphs with Three-Stacked Triangular Holes

Abstract

The Hamiltonian cycle problem is NP-complete for general grid graphs, while several structured classes admit efficient construction algorithms. In this paper, we investigate Hamiltonian cycle construction in rectangular grid graphs containing a three-stacked right-triangular hole. We explore two complementary approaches based on the geometric structure of the hole and the parity properties of rectangular subgraphs. The first approach constructs a Hamiltonian path in the complementary reversed staircase region, extends it into an inner Hamiltonian cycle, and merges it with a cycle in the surrounding graph. The second approach partitions the graph into six rectangular subgraphs and constructs a global Hamiltonian cycle by merging local cycles along compatible boundaries. When odd-sized rectangular subgraphs prevent direct cycle construction, we develop parity-based repartitioning techniques that transform selected configurations into even-sized rectangles. We provide constructions for adjacent and nonadjacent odd-sized configurations and investigate reductions for cases involving multiple odd-sized regions. These results establish a constructive framework for Hamiltonian cycles in grid graphs with staircase-shaped holes and identify the remaining cases requiring further analysis.