Pseudo Unique Sink Orientations

A unique sink orientation (USO) is an orientation of the n-dimensional cube graph (n-cube) such that every face (subcube) has a unique sink. The number of unique sink orientations is nΘ(2 n) [13]. If a cube orientation is not a USO, it contains a pseudo unique sink orientation (PUSO): an orientation of some subcube such that every proper face of it has a unique sink, but the subcube itself hasn’t. In this paper, we characterize and count PUSOs of the n-cube. We show that PUSOs have a much more rigid structure than USOs and that their number is between 2Ω(2 n−logn) and 2O(2 n) which is negligible compared to the number of USOs. As tools, we introduce and characterize two new classes of USOs: border USOs (USOs that appear as facets of PUSOs), and odd USOs which are dual to border USOs but easier to understand.