In this paper, a complete classification of finite simple cubic vertex-transitive graphs of girth $6$ is obtained. It is proved that every such graph, with the exception of the Desargues graph on $20$ vertices, is either a skeleton of a hexagonal tiling of the torus, the skeleton of the truncation of an arc-transitive triangulation of a closed hyperbolic surface, or the truncation of a $6$-regular graph with respect to an arc-transitive dihedral scheme. Cubic vertex-transitive graphs of girth larger than $6$ are also discussed.
This paper presents a characterization of edge-transitive graphs which are four regular and have girth four. This class consists of four infinite families plus four exceptional graphs.
We show that every (sub)cubic n-vertex graph with sufficiently large girth has fractional chromatic number at most 2.2978 which implies that it contains an independent set of size at least 0.4352n. Our bound on the independence number is valid to random cubic graphs as well as it improves existing lower bounds on the maximum cut in cubic graphs with large girth.
The Pancake graphs $P_n, n\geqslant 2$, are Cayley graphs over the symmetric group $\mathrm{Sym}_n$ generated by prefix-reversals. There are six generating sets of prefix-reversals of cardinality three which give connected Cayley graphs over the symmetric group known as cubic Pancake graphs. In this paper we study the girth of the cubic Pancake graphs. It is proved that considered cubic Pancake graphs have the girths at most twelve.
A graph is called hypohamiltonian if it is not hamiltonian but becomes hamiltonian if any vertex is removed. Many hypohamiltonian planar cubic graphs have been found, starting with constructions of Thomassen in 1981. However, all the examples found until now had 4-cycles. In this note we present the first examples of hypohamiltonian planar cubic graphs with cyclic connectivity five, and thus girth five. We show by computer search that the smallest members of this class are three graphs with 76 vertices.
We show that for every cubic graph G with sufficiently large girth there exists a probability distribution on edge-cuts of G such that each edge is in a randomly chosen cut with probability at least 0.88672. This implies that G contains an edge-cut of size at least 1.33008n, where n is the number of vertices of G, and has fractional cut covering number at most 1.127752. The lower bound on the size of maximum edge-cut also applies to random cubic graphs. Specifically, a random n-vertex cubic graph a.a.s. contains an edge cut of size 1.33008n.
We classify all the $2$-arc-transitive strongly regular graphs, and use this classification to study the family of finite $(G,3)$-geodesic-transitive graphs of girth $4$ or $5$ for some group $G$ of automorphisms. For this application we first give a reduction result on the latter family of graphs: let $N$ be a normal subgroup of $G$ which has at least $3$ orbits on vertices. We show that $Γ$ is a cover of its quotient $Γ_N$ modulo the $N$-orbits, and that either $Γ_N$ is $(G/N,3)$-geodesic-transitive of the same girth as $Γ$, or $Γ_N$ is a $(G/N,2)$-arc-transitive strongly regular graph, or $…
We prove a tight upper bound on the independence polynomial (and total number of independent sets) of cubic graphs of girth at least 5. The bound is achieved by unions of the Heawood graph, the point/line incidence graph of the Fano plane. We also give a tight lower bound on the total number of independent sets of triangle-free cubic graphs. This bound is achieved by unions of the Petersen graph. We conjecture that in fact all Moore graphs are extremal for the scaled number of independent sets in regular graphs of a given minimum girth, maximizing this quantity if their girth is even and minim…
We offer a new, gradual approach to the largest girth problem for cubic graphs. It is easily observed that the largest possible girth of all $n$-vertex cubic graphs is attained by a $2$-connected graph $G=(V,E)$. By Petersen's graph theorem, $E$ is the disjoint union of a $2$-factor and a perfect matching $M$. We refer to the edges of $M$ as chords and classify the cycles in $G$ by their number of chords. We define $γ_k(n)$ to be the largest integer $g$ such that every cubic $n$-vertex graph with a given perfect matching $M$ has a cycle of length at most $g$ with at most $k$ chords. Here we de…
For a graph $Γ$, a positive integer $s$ and a subgroup $G\leq \Aut(Γ)$, we prove that $G$ is transitive on the set of $s$-arcs of $Γ$ if and only if $Γ$ has girth at least $2(s-1)$ and $G$ is transitive on the set of $(s-1)$-geodesics of its line graph. As applications, we first prove that the only non-complete locally cyclic $2$-geodesic transitive graphs are the complete multipartite graph $K_{3[2]}$ and the icosahedron. Secondly we classify 2-geodesic transitive graphs of valency 4 and girth 3, and determine which of them are geodesic transitive.
We give a (computer assisted) proof that the edges of every graph with maximum degree 3 and girth at least 17 may be 5-colored (possibly improperly) so that the complement of each color class is bipartite. Equivalently, every such graph admits a homomorphism to the Clebsch graph. Hopkins and Staton and Bondy and Locke proved that every (sub)cubic graph of girth at least 4 has an edge-cut containing at least 4/5 of the edges. The existence of such an edge-cut follows immediately from the existence of a 5-edge-coloring as described above, so our theorem may be viewed as a coloring extension of t…
The colouring defect of a cubic graph, introduced by Steffen in 2015, is the minimum number of edges that are left uncovered by any set of three perfect matchings. Since a cubic graph has defect $0$ if and only if it is $3$-edge-colourable, this invariant can measure how much a cubic graph differs from a $3$-edge-colourable graph. Our aim is to examine the relationship of colouring defect to oddness, an extensively studied measure of uncolourability of cubic graphs, defined as the smallest number of odd circuits in a $2$-factor. We show that there exist cyclically $5$-edge-connected snarks (cu…
We introduce a notion of a girth-regular graph as a $k$-regular graph for which there exists a non-descending sequence $(a_1, a_2, \dots, a_k)$ (called the signature) giving, for every vertex $u$ of the graph, the number of girth cycles the edges with end-vertex $u$ lie on. Girth-regularity generalises two very different aspects of symmetry in graph theory: that of vertex transitivity and that of distance-regularity. For general girth-regular graphs, we give some results on the extremal cases of signatures. We then focus on the cubic case and provide a characterisation of cubic girth-regular g…
We describe two new algorithms for the generation of all non-isomorphic cubic graphs with girth at least $k\ge 5$ which are very efficient for $5\le k \le 7$ and show how these algorithms can be efficiently restricted to generate snarks with girth at least $k$. Our implementation of these algorithms is more than 30, respectively 40 times faster than the previously fastest generator for cubic graphs with girth at least 6 and 7, respectively. Using these generators we have also generated all non-isomorphic snarks with girth at least 6 up to 38 vertices and show that there are no snarks with girt…
In \cite{Chan95}, the authors classified the 2-extendable abelian Cayley graphs and posed the problem of characterizing all 2-extendable Cayley graphs. We first show that a connected bipartite Cayley (vertex-transitive) graph is 2-extendable if and only if it is not a cycle. It is known that a non-bipartite Cayley (vertex-transitive) graph is 2-extendable when it is of minimum degree at least five \cite{sun}. We next classify all 2-extendable cubic non-bipartite Cayley graphs and obtain that: a cubic non-bipartite Cayley graph with girth $g$ is 2-extendable if and only if $g\geq 4$ and it does…
A graph is said to be a bi-Cayley graph over a group H if it admits H as a group of automorphisms acting semiregularly on its vertices with two orbits. For a prime p, we call a bi-Cayley graph over a metacyclic p-group a bi-p-metacirculant. In this paper, the automorphism group of a connected cubic edge-transitive bi-p-metacirculant is characterized for an odd prime p, and the result reveals that a connected cubic edge-transitive bi-p-metacirculant exists only when p=3. Using this, a classification is given of connected cubic edge-transitive bi-Cayley graphs over an inner-abelian metacyclic 3-…
We characterise connected cubic graphs admitting a vertex- transitive group of automorphisms with an abelian normal subgroup that is not semiregular. We illustrate the utility of this result by using it to prove that the order of a semiregular subgroup of maximum order in a vertex-transitive group of automorphisms of a connected cubic graph grows with the order of the graph.
A connected graph of order $n$ admitting a semiregular automorphism of order $n/k$ is called a $k$-multicirculant. Highly symmetric multicirculants of small valency have been extensively studied, and several classification results exist for cubic vertex- and arc-transitive multicirculants. In this paper we study the broader class of cubic vertex-transitive graphs of order $n$ admitting an automorphism of order $n/3$ or larger that may not be semiregular. In particular, we show that any such graph is either a $k$-multicirculant for some $k \leq 3$, or it belongs to an infinite family of graphs …
It is shown that exactly 7 distance-transitive cubic graphs among the existing 12 possess a particular ultrahomogeneous property with respect to oriented cycles realizing the girth that allows the construction of a related Cayley digraph with similar ultrahomogeneous properties in which those oriented cycles appear minimally "pulled apart", or "separated" and whose description is truly beautiful and insightful. This work is proposed as the initiation of a study of similar ultrahomogeneous properties for distance-transitive graphs in general with the aim of generalizing to constructions of simi…
For integer $k\geq2$ and prime power $q$, the algebraic bipartite graph $D(k,q)$ proposed by Lazebnik and Ustimenko (1995) is meaningful not only in extremal graph theory but also in coding theory and cryptography. This graph is $q$-regular, edge-transitive and of girth at least $k+4$. For its exact girth $g=g(D(k,q))$, Füredi et al. (1995) conjectured $g=k+5$ for odd $k$ and $q\geq4$. This conjecture was shown to be valid in 2016 when $(k+5)/2$ is the product of an arbitrary factor of $q-1$ and an arbitrary power of the characteristic of $\mathbb{F}_q$. In this paper, we determine all the gir…
In this paper, we prove that the maximal order of a semiregular element in the automorphism group of a cubic vertex-transitive graph X does not tend to infinity as the number of vertices of X tends to infinity. This gives a solution (in the negative) to a conjecture of Peter Cameron, John Sheehan and the author. However, with an application of the positive solution of the restricted Burnside problem, we show that this conjecture holds true when X is either a Cayley graph or an arc-transitive graph.
Reiman produced a quadratic inequality for the size of bipartite graphs of girth six. We get its counterpart for girth eight, a cubic inequality. It is optimal in as far as it admits the algebraic structure of generalized quadrangles as case of equality. This enables us to obtain the optimal estimate e ~ v^(4/3) for balanced bipartite graphs. We also get an optimal estimate for very unbalanced graphs.
A graph is said to be a bi-Cayley graph over a group H if it admits H as a group of automorphisms acting semiregularly on its vertices with two orbits. A non-abelian group is called an inner-abelian group if all of its proper subgroups are abelian. In this paper, we complete the classification of connected cubic edge-transitive bi-Cayley graphs over inner-abelian p-groups for an odd prime p.
A finite graph is called a tricirculant if admits a cyclic group of automorphism which has precisely three orbits on the vertex-set of the graph, all of equal size. We classify all finite connected cubic vertex-transitive tricirculants. We show that except for some small exceptions of order less than 54, each of these graphs is either a prism of order 6k with k odd, a Möbius ladder, or it falls into one of two infinite families, each family containing one graph for every order of the form 6k with k odd.
Finite connected cubic symmetric graphs of girth 6 have been classified by K. Kutnar and D. Marušič, in particular, each of these graphs has an abelian automorphism group with two orbits on the vertex set. In this paper all cubic symmetric graphs with the latter property are determined. In particular, with the exception of the graphs K_4, K_{3,3}, Q_3, GP(5,2), GP(10,2), F40 and GP(24,5), all the obtained graphs are of girth 6.
Let $k\ge 1$ be an odd integer, $t=\lfloor {{k+2}\over 4}\rfloor$, and $q$ be a prime power. We construct a bipartite, $q$-regular, edge-transitive graph $C\!D(k,q)$ of order $v \le 2q^{k-t+1}$ and girth $g \ge k+5$. If $e$ is the the number of edges of $C\!D(k,q)$, then $e =Ω(v^{1+ {1\over {k-t+1}}})$. These graphs provide the best known asymptotic lower bound for the greatest number of edges in graphs of order $v$ and girth at least $g$, $ g\ge 5$, $g \not= 11,12$. For $g\ge 24$, this represents a slight improvement on bounds established by Margulis and Lubotzky, Phillips, Sarnak; for $5\le …
A generalized Petersen graph $GP(n,k)$ is a regular cubic graph on $2n$ vertices (the parameter $k$ is used to define some of the edges). It was previously shown (Ball et al., 2015) that the cop number of $GP(n,k)$ is at most $4$, for all permissible values of $n$ and $k$. In this paper we prove that the cop number of "most" generalized Petersen graphs is exactly $4$. More precisely, we show that unless $n$ and $k$ fall into certain specified categories, then the cop number of $GP(n,k)$ is $4$. The graphs to which our result applies all have girth $8$. In fact, our argument is slightly more ge…
We present an interactive framework that, given a membership test for a graph class $\mathcal{G}$ and a number $k$, finds and tests unavoidable sets for the class of graphs in $\mathcal{G}$ of path-width at most $k$. We put special emphasis on the case that $\mathcal{G}$ is the class of cubic graphs and tailor the algorithm to this case. In particular, we introduce the new concept of high-degree-first path-decompositions, which yields highly efficient pruning techniques. Using this framework we determine all extremal girth values of cubic graphs of path-width $k$ for all $k \in \{3,\dots, 10\}…
A graph is called cubic and tetravalent if all of its vertices have valency 3 and 4, respectively. It is called vertex-transitive and arc-transitive if its automorphism group acts transitively on its vertex-set and on its arc- set, respectively. In this paper, we combine some new theoretical results with computer calculations to construct all cubic vertex-transitive graphs of order at most 1280. In the process, we also construct all tetravalent arc-transitive graphs of order at most 640.
The search for the smallest possible $d$-regular graph of girth $g$ has a long history, and is usually known as the cage problem. This problem has a natural extension to hypergraphs, where we may ask for the smallest number of vertices in a $d$-regular, $r$-uniform hypergraph of given (Berge) girth $g$. We show that these two problems are in fact very closely linked. By extending the ideas of Cayley graphs to the hypergraph context, we find smallest known hypergraphs for various parameter sets. Because of the close link to the cage problem from graph theory, we are able to use these techniques…
A finite simple graph is called a bi-Cayley graph over a group $H$ if it has a semiregular automorphism group, isomorphic to $H,$ which has two orbits on the vertex set. Cubic vertex-transitive bi-Cayley graphs over abelian groups have been classified recently by Feng and Zhou (Europ. J. Combin. 36 (2014), 679--693). In this paper we consider the latter class of graphs and select those in the class which are also arc-transitive. Furthermore, such a graph is called $0$-type when it is bipartite, and the bipartition classes are equal to the two orbits of the respective semiregular automorphism g…
We prove that a random cubic graph almost surely is not homomorphic to a cycle of size 7. This implies that there exist cubic graphs of arbitrarily high girth with no homomorphisms to the cycle of size 7.
A graph $\G$ admitting a group $H$ of automorphisms acting semi-regularly on the vertices with exactly two orbits is called a {\em bi-Cayley graph\/} over $H$. Such a graph $\G$ is called {\em normal\/} if $H$ is normal in the full automorphism group of $\G$, and {\em normal edge-transitive\/} if the normaliser of $H$ in the full automorphism group of $\G$ is transitive on the edges of $\G$. % In this paper, we give a characterisation of normal edge-transitive bi-Cayley graphs, %which form an important subfamily of bi-Cayley graphs, and in particular, we give a detailed description of $2$-arc-…
This paper is to accompany the Census of Edge-Transitive Tetravalent Graphs, available at jan.ucc.nau.edu/~swilson/C4FullSite/index.html, which is a collection of all known edge-transitive graphs of valence 4 up to 512 vertices. The Census contains information for each graph. This information includes parameters such as group order, diameter, girth etc., all known constructions, relations to other graphs in the Census and intersting substructures such as colorings, cycle structures, and dissections. We try to present most graphs as members of one or more parameterized families, and one purpose…
For integer $k\geq2$ and prime power $q$, the algebraic bipartite graph $D(k,q)$ proposed by Lazebnik and Ustimenko (1995) is meaningful not only in extremal graph theory but also in coding theory and cryptography. This graph is $q$-regular, edge-transitive and of girth at least $k+4$. Its exact girth $g=g(D(k,q))$ was conjectured in 1995 to be $k+5$ for odd $k$ and $q\geq4$. This conjecture was shown to be valid in 2016 when $\frac{k+5}{2}|_p(q-1)$, where $p$ is the characteristic of $\mathbb{F}_q$ and $m|_pn$ means that $m$ divides $p^r n$ for some nonnegative integer $r$. In this paper, for…
Unitary graphs are arc-transitive graphs with vertices the flags of Hermitian unitals and edges defined by certain elements of the underlying finite fields. They played a significant role in a recent classification of a class of arc-transitive graphs that admit an automorphism group acting imprimitively on the vertices. In this paper we prove that all unitary graphs are connected of diameter two and girth three. Based on this we obtain, for any prime power $q > 2$, a lower bound of order $O(Δ^{5/3})$ on the maximum number of vertices in an arc-transitive graph of degree $Δ= q(q^2-1)$ and diame…
For an integer $k\geq 1$, a graph is called a $k$-circulant if its automorphism group contains a cyclic semiregular subgroup with $k$ orbits on the vertices. We show that, if $k$ is even, there exist infinitely many cubic arc-transitive $k$-circulants. We conjecture that, if $k$ is odd, then a cubic arc-transitive $k$-circulant has order at most $6k^2$. Our main result is a proof of this conjecture when $k$ is squarefree and coprime to $6$.
Partial cubes are graphs isometrically embeddable into hypercubes. In this paper it is proved that every cubic, vertex-transitive partial cube is isomorphic to one of the following graphs: $K_2 \, \square \, C_{2n}$, for some $n\geq 2$, the generalized Petersen graph $G(10,3)$, the cubic permutahedron, the truncated cuboctahedron, or the truncated icosidodecahedron. This classification is a generalization of results of Brešar et al.~from 2004 on cubic mirror graphs, it includes all cubic, distance-regular partial cubes (Weichsel, 1992), and presents a contribution to the classification of all …
Impact of local girth on the S-packing coloring of k-saturated subcubic graphs
University of Sciences and Arts in Lebanon（黎巴嫩科学与艺术学院）；KALMA Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, Lebanese University（黎巴嫩大学理学院 KALMA 实验室）；Al Maaref University（阿尔马雷夫大学）；Lebanese International University (LIU)（黎巴嫩国际大学）
In this paper, all graphs are assumed to be finite. For $s\geq 1$ and a graph $\G$, if for every pair of isomorphic connected induced subgraphs on at most $s$ vertices there exists an automorphism of $\G$ mapping the first to the second, then we say that $\G$ is $s$-connected-set-homogeneous, and if every isomorphism between two isomorphic connected induced subgraphs on at most $s$ vertices can be extended to an automorphism of $\G$, then we say that $\G$ is $s$-connected-homogeneous. For $n\geq 1$, a graph $\G$ is said to be locally $2\K_n$ if the subgraph $[\G(u)]$ induced on the set of vert…
Fakulteta za Matematiko in Fiziko, Univerza v Ljubljani（卢布尔雅那大学数学与物理学院）；Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick（华威大学数学研究所）；Dipartimento di Matematica e Applicazioni, University of Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡大学数学与应用系）
