Alternating signed bipartite graphs and difference-1 colourings

Abstract

We investigate a class of 2-edge coloured bipartite graphs known as alternating signed bipartite graphs (ASBGs) that encode the information in alternating sign matrices. The central question is when a given bipartite graph admits an ASBG-colouring; a 2-edge colouring such that the resulting graph is an ASBG. We introduce the concept of a difference-1 colouring, a relaxation of the concept of an ASBG-colouring, and present a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for when a graph admits a difference-1 colouring. The relationship between distinct difference-1 colourings of a particular graph is characterised, and some classes of graphs for which all difference-1 colourings are ASBG-colourings are identified. One key step is Theorem 3.4.6, which generalises Hall’s Matching Theorem by describing a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a subgraph H of a bipartite graph in which each vertex v of H has some prescribed degree r(v).