On the number of planar Eulerian orientations

Nicolas Bonichon (1) , Mireille Bousquet-Mélou (2, 1) , Paul Dorbec (1) , Claire Pennarun (1)

1 LaBRI - Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique
2 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

The number of planar Eulerian maps with n edges is well-known to have a simple expression. But what is the number of planar Eulerian orientations with n edges? This problem appears to be difficult. To approach it, we define and count families of subsets and supersets of planar Eulerian orientations, indexed by an integer k, that converge to the set of all planar Eulerian orientations as k increases. The generating functions of our subsets can be characterized by systems of polynomial equations, and are thus algebraic. The generating functions of our supersets are characterized by polynomial systems involving divided differences, as often occurs in map enumeration. We prove that these series are algebraic as well. We obtain in this way lower and upper bounds on the growth rate of planar Eulerian orientations, which appears to be around 12.5.

Mots clés: Eulerian orientations; planar maps; generating functions

Domaines: Combinatoire [math.CO]

Nicolas Bonichon, Mireille Bousquet-Mélou, Paul Dorbec, Claire Pennarun. On the number of planar Eulerian orientations. European Journal of Combinatorics, 2017, 65, pp.59-91. ⟨hal-01389264v2⟩