The Origami flip graph of the $2\times n$ Miura-ori

Abstract

Given an origami crease pattern $C=(V,E)$, a straight-line planar graph embedded in a region of ${\mathbb{R}}^2$, we assign each crease to be either a mountain crease (which bends convexly) or a valley crease (which bends concavely), creating a mountain-valley (MV) assignment $\mu :E\to \{-1,1\}$. An MV assignment $\mu$ is locally valid if the faces around each vertex in $C$ can be folded flat under $\mu$. In this paper, we investigate locally valid MV assignments of the Miura-ori, $M_{m,n}$, an $m\times n$ parallelogram tessellation used in numerous engineering applications. The origami flip graph $OFG(C)$ of $C$ is a graph whose vertices are locally valid MV assignments of $C$, and two vertices are adjacent if they differ by a face flip, an operation that swaps the MV-parity of every crease bordering a given face of $C$. We enumerate the number of vertices and edges in $OFG(M_{2,n})$ and prove several facts about the degrees of vertices in $OFG(M_{2,n})$. By finding recurrence relations, we show that the number of vertices of degree $d$ and $2n-a$ (for $0\le a$) are both described by polynomials of particular degrees. We then prove that the diameter of $OFG(M_{2,n})$ is $\lceil \frac{n^2}{2}\rceil$ and find lower bounds on the diameter of $OFG(M_{m,n})$ using techniques from $3$-coloring reconfiguration graphs.