Flip Graphs of Stacked and Flag Triangulations of the 2-Sphere

It is well-known that the flip graph of $n$-vertex triangulated $2$-spheres is connected, i.e., each pair of $n$-vertex triangulated $2$-spheres can be turned into each other by a sequence of edge flips for each $n\ge 4$. In this article, we study various induced subgraphs of this graph. In particular, we prove that the subgraph of $n$-vertex flag $2$-spheres distinct from the double cone is still connected. In contrast, we show that the subgraph of $n$-vertex stacked $2$-spheres has at least as many connected components as there are trees on $\lfloor\frac{n-5}{3}\rfloor$ nodes with maximum node-degree at most four.