Self-dual Maps I : antipodality

Abstract

A self-dual map $G$ is said to be \emph{antipodally self-dual} if the dual map $G^{\ast }$ is antipodal embedded in ${\mathbb{S}}^2$ with respect to $G$. In this paper, we investigate necessary and/or sufficient conditions for a map to be antipodally self-dual. In particular, we present a combinatorial characterization for map $G$ to be antipodally self-dual in terms of certain \emph{involutive labelings}. The latter lead us to obtain necessary conditions for a map to be \emph{strongly involutive} (a notion relevant for its connection with convex geometric problems). We also investigate the relation of antipodally self-dual maps and the notion of \emph{ antipodally symmetric} maps. It turns out that the latter is a very helpful tool to study questions concerning the \emph{symmetry} as well as the \emph{amphicheirality} of \emph{links}.