Many famous graphs are edge-primitive, for example, the Heawood graph, the Tutte--Coxeter graph and the Higman--Sims graph. In this paper we systematically analyse edge-primitive and edge-quasiprimitive graphs via the O'Nan--Scott Theorem to determine the possible edge and vertex actions of such graphs. Many interesting examples are given and we also determine all $G$-edge-primitive graphs for $G$ an almost simple group with socle $PSL(2,q)$.
In this paper we discuss a method for bounding the size of the stabiliser of a vertex in a $G$-vertex-transitive graph $Γ$. In the main result the group $G$ is quasiprimitive or biquasiprimitive on the vertices of $Γ$, and we obtain a genuine reduction to the case where $G$ is a nonabelian simple group. Using normal quotient techniques developed by the first author, the main theorem applies to general $G$-vertex-transitive graphs which are $G$-locally primitive (respectively, $G$-locally quasiprimitive), that is, the stabiliser $G_α$ of a vertex $α$ acts primitively (respectively quasiprimitiv…
We study vertex-quasiprimitive $2$-arc-transitive digraphs, reducing the problem of vertex-primitive $2$-arc-transitive digraphs to almost simple groups. This includes a complete classification of vertex-quasiprimitive $2$-arc-transitive digraphs where the action on vertices has O'Nan-Scott type SD or CD.
For a non-complete graph $Γ$, a vertex triple $(u,v,w)$ with $v$ adjacent to both $u$ and $w$ is called a $2$-geodesic if $u\neq w$ and $u,w$ are not adjacent. Then $Γ$ is said to be $2$-geodesic transitive if its automorphism group is transitive on both arcs and 2-geodesics. In previous work the author showed that if a $2$-geodesic transitive graph $Γ$ is locally disconnected and its automorphism group $\Aut(Γ)$ has a non-trivial normal subgroup which is intransitive on the vertex set of $Γ$, then $Γ$ is a cover of a smaller 2-geodesic transitive graph. Thus the `basic' graphs to study are th…
We develop a new framework for analysing finite connected, oriented graphs of valency 4, which admit a vertex-transitive and edge-transitive group of automorphisms preserving the edge orientation. We identify a sub-family of "basic" graphs such that each graph of this type is a normal cover of at least one basic graph. The basic graphs either admit an edge-transitive group of automorphisms that is quasiprimitive or biquasiprimitive on vertices, or admit an (oriented or unoriented) cycle as a normal quotient. We anticipate that each of these additional properties will facilitate effective furth…
In this paper, we examine the structure of vertex- and edge-transitive strongly regular graphs, using normal quotient reduction. We show that the irreducible graphs in this family have quasiprimitive automorphism groups, and prove (using the Classification of Finite Simple Groups) that no graph in this family has a holomorphic simple automorphism group. We also find some constraints on the parameters of the graphs in this family that reduce to complete graphs.
A graph is edge-transitive if its automorphism group acts transitively on the edge set. In this paper, we investigate the automorphism groups of edge-transitive graphs of odd order and twice prime valency. Let $Γ$ be a connected graph of odd order and twice prime valency, and let $G$ be a subgroup of the automorphism group of $\Ga$. In the case where $G$ acts transitively on the edges and quasiprimitively on the vertices of $\Ga$, we prove that either $G$ is almost simple or $G$ is a primitive group of affine type. If further $G$ is an almost simple primitive group then, with two exceptions, t…
A graph is edge-primitive if its automorphism group acts primitively on the edge set, and 2-arc-transitive if its automorphism group acts transitively on the set of 2-arcs. In this paper, we present a classification for those edge-primitive graphs which are 2-arc-transitive and have soluble edge-stabilizers.
Let $n$ be a positive integer, $q$ be a prime power, and $V$ be a vector space of dimension $n$ over $\mathbb{F}_q$. Let $G := V \rtimes G_0$, where $G_0$ is an irreducible subgroup of ${\rm GL}(V)$ which is maximal by inclusion with respect to being intransitive on the set of nonzero vectors. We are interested in the class of all diameter two graphs $Γ$ that admit such a group $G$ as an arc-transitive, vertex-quasiprimitive subgroup of automorphisms. In particular, we consider those graphs for which $G_0$ is a subgroup of either ${\rm ΓL}(n,q)$ or ${\rm ΓSp}(n,q)$ and is maximal in one of the…
We determine all finite primitive groups that are automorphism groups of edge-transitive hypergraphs. This gives an answer to a problem proposed by Babai and Cameron
This paper begins the classification of all edge-primitive 3-arc-transitive graphs by classifying all such graphs where the automorphism group is an almost simple group with socle an alternating or sporadic group, and all such graphs where the automorphism group is an almost simple classical group with a vertex-stabiliser acting faithfully on the set of neighbours.
Diagonal groups are one of the classes of finite primitive permutation groups occurring in the conclusion of the O'Nan-Scott theorem. Several of the other classes have been described as the automorphism groups of geometric or combinatorial structures such as affine spaces or Cartesian decompositions, but such structures for diagonal groups have not been studied. The main purpose of this paper is to describe and characterise such structures, which we call diagonal semilattices. Unlike the diagonal groups in the O'Nan-Scott theorem, which are defined over finite characteristically simple groups,…
A graph is edge-primitive if its automorphism group acts primitively on the edge set. In this short paper, we prove that a finite 2-arc-transitive edge-primitive graph has almost simple automorphism group if it is neither a cycle nor a complete bipartite graph. We also present two examples of such graphs, which are 3-arc-transitive and have faithful vertex-stabilizers.
The operation of switching a graph $Γ$ with respect to a subset $X$ of the vertex set interchanges edges and non-edges between $X$ and its complement, leaving the rest of the graph unchanged. This is an equivalence relation on the set of graphs on a given vertex set, so we can talk about the automorphism group of a switching class of graphs. It might be thought that switching classes with many automorphisms would have the property that all their graphs also have many automorphisms. However the main theorem of this paper shows a different picture: with finitely many exceptions, if a non-trivial…
A Cayley Graph for a group $G$ is called normal edge-transitive if it admits an edge-transitive action of some subgroup of the Holomorph of $G$ (the normaliser of a regular copy of $G$ in $\operatorname{Sym}(G)$). We complete the classification of normal edge-transitive Cayley graphs of order a product of two primes by dealing with Cayley graphs for Frobenius groups of such orders. We determine the automorphism groups of these graphs, proving in particular that there is a unique vertex-primitive example, namely the flag graph of the Fano plane.
A transitive decomposition of a graph is a partition of the edge set together with a group of automorphisms which transitively permutes the parts. In this paper we determine all transitive decompositions of the Johnson graphs such that the group preserving the partition is arc-transitive and acts primitively on the parts.
We study the class of all finite directed graphs up to primitive positive constructability. The resulting order has a unique greatest element, namely the graph $P_1$ with one vertex and no edges. The graph $P_1$ has a unique greatest lower bound, namely the graph $P_2$ with two vertices and one directed edge. Our main result is a complete description of the greatest lower bounds of $P_2$; we call these graphs submaximal. We show that every graph that is not equivalent to $P_1$ and $P_2$ is below one of the submaximal graphs.
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for lobe-transitivity of locally finite and locally countable graphs whose connectivity equals 1. We show further that, given any biconnected graph $Λ$ and a "code" assigned to each orbit of Aut($Λ$), there exists a unique lobe-transitive graph $Γ$ of connectivity 1 whose lobes are copies of $Λ$ and is consistent with the given code at every vertex of $Γ$. These results lead to necessary and sufficient conditions for a graph of connectivity $1$ to be edge-transitive and to be arc-transitive. Countable graphs of connectivity 1 the action of whose auto…
Let $Γ$ be a finite, undirected, connected, simple graph. We say that a matching $\mathcal{M}$ is a \textit{permutable $m$-matching} if $\mathcal{M}$ contains $m$ edges and the subgroup of $\text{Aut}(Γ)$ that fixes the matching $\mathcal{M}$ setwise allows the edges of $\mathcal{M}$ to be permuted in any fashion. A matching $\mathcal{M}$ is \textit{2-transitive} if the setwise stabilizer of $\mathcal{M}$ in $\text{Aut}(Γ)$ can map any ordered pair of distinct edges of $\mathcal{M}$ to any other ordered pair of distinct edges of $\mathcal{M}$. We provide constructions of graphs with a permutab…
Common models for random graphs, such as Erdős-Rényi and Kronecker graphs, correspond to generating random adjacency matrices where each entry is non-zero based on a large matrix of probabilities. Generating an instance of a random graph based on these models is easy, although inefficient, by flipping biased coins (i.e. sampling binomial random variables) for each possible edge. This process is inefficient because most large graph models correspond to sparse graphs where the vast majority of coin flips will result in no edges. We describe some not-entirely-well-known, but not-entirely-unknown,…
