The minimum number of Dehn $\mathbb{Z}$-colors of any nonsplittable $\mathbb{Z}$-colorable link is three

Abstract

Our previous papers [8, 9] are the first and second to discuss minimum numbers of ``region'' colors, while minimum numbers of arc colors such as Fox colors are well-studied. As the third installment, in this paper, we investigate the minimum number of Dehn $\mathbb{Z}$-colors. In particular, we show that the minimum number of Dehn $\mathbb{Z}$-colors of a nonsplittable $\mathbb{Z}$-colorable link is three.