Resolving the Klavžar-Kovše conjecture on opposite semicube isomorphisms in partial cubes and its extension

Abstract

Partial cubes are a fundamental class of graphs that admit isometric embeddings into hypercubes. Klavžar and Kovše [Ars Combin. 93 (2009), 77--86] observed that the opposite semicubes of every harmonic-even partial cube are pairwise isomorphic, and asked whether the converse is true, that is, whether a partial cube is harmonic-even if and only if its opposite semicubes are pairwise isomorphic. In this paper, we answer this question in the negative by constructing an infinite family of partial cubes with pairwise isomorphic opposite semicubes that are not harmonic-even. This establishes that pairwise opposite-semicube isomorphism is strictly weaker than harmonic-evenness and naturally leads to the question of what additional condition restores the equivalence. To address this question, we introduce the opposite-semicube Helly property and prove that a finite partial cube satisfying this property is antipodal, or equivalently harmonic-even by Polat's theorem, if and only if it has pairwise isomorphic opposite semicubes.