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Generating irreducible triangulations of surfaces

Thom Sulanke

math.COarXiv:math/0606687

Abstract

Starting with the irreducible triangulations of a fixed surface and splitting vertices, all the triangulations of the surface up to a given number of vertices can be generated. The irreducible triangulations have previously been determined for the surfaces S0, S1, N1,and N2. An algorithm is presented for generating the irreducible triangulations of a fixed surface using triangulations of other surfaces. This algorithm has been implemented as a computer program which terminates for S1, S2, N1, N2, N3, and N4. Thus the complete sets irreducible triangulations are now also known for S2, N3, and N4, with respective cardinalities 396784, 9708, and 6297982.

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