Self-Avoiding Loops in a Lattice

There are 2 self-avoiding (non-self-intersecting) paths from the southwest corner of a grid back to the beginning, using only steps north, east, south, or west, that stay within a 1 × 1 grid:

2 paths, 1 x 1 grid

(If you don’t care about orientation, you can divide each total by two.)

This kind of thing is sometimes called a self-avoiding polygon.

14 self-avoiding paths through a 2 × 2 grid back to the beginning:

14 paths, 2 x 2 grid

(Of these 14 paths: the first 2 take 4 steps; the next 4 paths take 6 steps; and the last 8 paths take 8 steps.)

194 paths through a 3 × 3 grid back to the beginning:

194 paths, 3 x 3 grid

(Of these 194 paths: 2 of them take 4 steps; 4 take 6 steps; 12 take 8 steps; 36 take 10 steps; 80 take 12 steps; 48 take 14 steps; and 12 take 16 steps.)

Let’s not concern ourselves with the 8,222 self-avoiding loops through a 4 × 4 grid.

Of course, this isn’t the full set of self-avoiding polygons, since points other than the corners can be used as the start and end.

While we’re on the subject, there seem to be 42 self-avoiding paths through a 1 × 1 × 1 lattice:

42 paths, 1 x 1 x 1 lattice

(Of these 42 paths: 6 of them take 4 steps; 24 paths take 6 steps; and 12 paths take 8 steps.)

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