Minimally globally rigid graphs

Abstract: A graph $G = (V,E)$ is globally rigid in $\mathbb{R}^d$ if for any generic placement $p : V \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^d$ of the vertices, the edge lengths $||p(u) - p(v)||, uv \in E$ uniquely determine $p$, up to congruence. In this paper we consider minimally globally rigid graphs, in which the deletion of an arbitrary edge destroys global rigidity. We prove that if $G=(V,E)$ is minimally globally rigid in $\mathbb{R}^d$ on at least $d+2$ vertices, then $|E|\leq (d+1)|V|-\binom{d+2}{2}$. This implies that the minimum degree of $G$ is at most $2d+1$. We also show that the only graph in which the upper bound on the number of edges is attained is the complete graph $K_{d+2}$. It follows that every minimally globally rigid graph in $\mathbb{R}^d$ on at least $d+3$ vertices is flexible in $\mathbb{R}^{d+1}$. As a counterpart to our main result on the sparsity of minimally globally rigid graphs, we show that in two dimensions, dense graphs always contain nontrivial globally rigid subgraphs. More precisely, if some graph $G=(V,E)$ satisfies $|E|\geq 5|V|$, then $G$ contains a subgraph on at least seven vertices that is globally rigid in $\mathbb{R}^2$. If the well-known "sufficient connectivity conjecture" is true, then our methods also extend to higher dimensions. Finally, we discuss a conjectured strengthening of our main result, which states that if a pair of vertices ${u,v}$ is linked in $G$ in $\mathbb{R}^{d+1}$, then ${u,v}$ is globally linked in $G$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We prove this conjecture in the $d=1,2$ cases, along with a variety of related results.