One construction for the Miura-ori flip-graph degree sequence

Abstract

The flip graph of an origami crease pattern has the locally flat-foldable mountain-valley assignments as vertices, and an edge joins two of them that differ by a single face flip. A basic invariant of this graph is the degree sequence, which counts the vertices of each degree. On the $m\times n$ Miura-ori, this sequence is known to be a bivariate polynomial only for small degrees, each count obtained by a separate argument. This paper gives one uniform construction that expresses, for every degree $d$, the number of degree-$d$ vertices as a single symmetric polynomial in $(m,n)$ for all sufficiently large $m,n$. Its degree in each variable is $d-2$ unconditionally. Subject to a single degree bound, its total degree is $d-2$ as well, with top-degree part an explicit multiple of $m^{d-2}+n^{d-2}$ for $d\ge 5$. The bound is proved here when the count splits into independent row and column factors, and open otherwise. The region is $m,n\ge \max (d-1,2)$. The polynomials are given in closed form through $d=10$, unconditional through $d=8$, where the degree bound holds in every case, and conditional on it beyond. Below this region the count departs from the polynomial. One step below, this departure has leading coefficient $-4$ times a Baxter number through $d=11$. Each such polynomial thus counts the Miura-ori's locally flat-foldable assignments admitting exactly $d$ single face flips.

32 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. Sequel to arXiv:2606.22614. Code: https://github.com/ChakshuGupta13/lab