Signed permutations and the four color theorem

Abstract

To each permutation $\sigma$ in $S_n$ we associate a triangulation of a fixed $(n+2)$-gon. We then determine the fibers of this association and show that they coincide with the sylvester classes depicted By Novelli, Hivert and Thibon. A signed version of this construction allows us to reformulate the four color theorem in terms of the existence of a signable path between any two permutations in the Cayley graph of the symmetric group $S_{n}.

29 pages, 9 figures