Following a problem posed by Lovász in 1969, it is believed that every connected vertex-transitive graph has a Hamilton path. This is shown here to be true for cubic Cayley graphs arising from groups having a $(2,s,3)$-presentation, that is, for groups $G=\la a,b| a^2=1, b^s=1, (ab)^3=1, etc. \ra$ generated by an involution $a$ and an element $b$ of order $s\geq3$ such that their product $ab$ has order 3. More precisely, it is shown that the Cayley graph $X=Cay(G,\{a,b,b^{-1}\})$ has a Hamilton cycle when $|G|$ (and thus $s$) is congruent to 2 modulo 4, and has a long cycle missing only two vertices (and thus necessarily a Hamilton path) when $|G|$ is congruent to 0 modulo 4.
The symmetric group is generated by σ = (1 2 ... n) and τ = (1 2). We answer an open problem of Nijenhuis and Wilf by constructing a Hamilton path in the directed Cayley graph for all n, and a Hamilton cycle for odd n.
For locally finite infinite graphs the notion of Hamilton cycles can be extended to Hamilton circles, homeomorphic images of $S^1$ in the Freudenthal compactification. In this paper we extend some well-known theorems of the Hamiltonicity of finite Cayley graphs to infinite Cayley graphs.
We investigate subsets of the symmetric group with structure similar to that of a graph. The trees of these subsets correspond to minimal conjugate generating sets of the symmetric group. There are two main theorems in this paper. The first is a characterization of minimal conjugate generating sets of S_n. The second is a generalization of a result due to Feng characterizing the automorphism groups of the Cayley graphs formed by certain generating sets composed of cycles. We compute the full automorphism groups subject to a weak condition and conjecture that the characterization still holds wi…
We classify the planar cubic Cayley graphs of connectivity 2, providing an explicit presentation and embedding for each of them. Combined with [9] this yields a complete description of all planar cubic Cayley graphs.
We construct a connected cubic nonnormal Cayley graph on $\mathrm{A}_{2^m-1}$ for each integer $m\geqslant4$ and determine its full automorphism group. This is the first infinite family of connected cubic nonnormal Cayley graphs on nonabelian simple groups.
We obtain a complete description of the planar cubic Cayley graphs, providing an explicit presentation and embedding for each of them. This turns out to be a rich class, comprising several infinite families. We obtain counterexamples to conjectures of Mohar, Bonnington and Watkins. Our analysis makes the involved graphs accessible to computation, corroborating a conjecture of Droms.
We analyse a polyhedron which contains the convex hull of all Hamiltonian cycles of a given undirected connected cubic graph. Our constructed polyhedron is defined by polynomially-many linear constraints in polynomially-many continuous (relaxed) variables. Clearly, the emptiness of the constructed polyhedron implies that the graph is non-Hamiltonian. However, whenever a constructed polyhedron is non-empty, the result is inconclusive. Hence, the following natural question arises: if we assume that a non-empty polyhedron implies Hamiltonicity, how frequently is this diagnosis incorrect? We prove…
A group $G$ splits over a subgroup $C$ if $G$ is either a free product with amalgamation $A \underset{C}{\ast} B$ or an HNN-extension $G=A \underset{C}{\ast} (t)$. We invoke Bass-Serre theory and classify all infinite groups which admit cubic Cayley graphs of connectivity two in terms of splittings over a subgroup.
It is a well-known fact that hamiltonicity in planar cubic graphs is an NP-complete problem. This implies that the existence of an A-trail in plane eulerian graphs is also an NP-complete problem even if restricted to planar 3-connected eulerian graphs. In this paper we deal with hamiltonicity in planar cubic graphs G having a facial 2-factor Q via (quasi) spanning trees of faces in G/Q and study the algorithmic complexity of finding such (quasi) spanning trees of faces. We show, in particular, that if Barnette's Conjecture is false, then hamiltonicity in 3-connected planar cubic bipartite grap…
For any positive integer $k$, let $\mathcal{G}_k$ denote the set of finite groups $G$ such that all Cayley graphs ${\rm Cay}(G,S)$ are integral whenever $|S|\le k$. Est${\rm \acute{e}}$lyi and Kov${\rm \acute{a}}$cs \cite{EK14} classified $\mathcal{G}_k$ for each $k\ge 4$. In this paper, we characterize the finite groups each of whose cubic Cayley graphs is integral. Moreover, the class $\mathcal{G}_3$ is characterized. As an application, the classification of $\mathcal{G}_k$ is obtained again, where $k\ge 4$.
A graph is said to be {\em vertex-transitive non-Cayley} if its full automorphism group acts transitively on its vertices and contains no subgroups acting regularly on its vertices. In this paper, a complete classification of cubic vertex-transitive non-Cayley graphs of order $12p$, where $p$ is a prime, is given. As a result, there are $11$ sporadic and one infinite family of such graphs, of which the sporadic ones occur when $p=5$, $7$ or $17$, and the infinite family exists if and only if $p\equiv1\ (\mod 4)$, and in this family there is a unique graph for a given order.
A perfect matching reciprocity method for embedding multiple hypercubes in an augmented cube: Applications to Hamiltonian decomposition and fault-tolerant Hamiltonicity
Let $p$ be an odd prime, and $D_{2p}=\langle a,b\mid a^p=b^2=1,bab=a^{-1}\rangle$ the dihedral group of order $2p$. In this paper, we completely classify the cubic Cayley graphs on $D_{2p}$ up to isomorphism by means of spectral method. By the way, we show that two cubic Cayley graphs on $D_{2p}$ are isomorphic if and only if they are cospectral. Moreover, we obtain the number of isomorphic classes of cubic Cayley graphs on $D_{2p}$ by using Gauss' celebrated law of quadratic reciprocity.
We study the existence of hamiltonian cycles in plane cubic graphs G having a facial 2-factor Q. Thus hamiltonicity in G is transformed into the existence of a (quasi) spanning tree of faces in the contraction G/Q. In particular, we study the case where G is the leapfrog extension (called vertex envelope in (Discrete Math., 309(14):4793-4809, 2009)) of a plane cubic graph G_0. As a consequence we prove hamiltonicity in the leapfrog extension of planar cubic cyclically 4-edge-connected bipartite graphs. This and other results of this paper establish partial solutions of Barnette's Conjecture ac…
In this paper we introduce new models of random graphs, arising from Latin squares which include random Cayley graphs as a special case. We investigate some properties of these graphs including their clique, independence and chromatic numbers, their expansion properties as well as their connectivity and Hamiltonicity. The results obtained are compared with other models of random graphs and several similarities and differences are pointed out. For many properties our results for the general case are as strong as the known results for random Cayley graphs and sometimes improve the previously bes…
It was proved in [Y.-Q. Feng, C. H. Li and J.-X. Zhou, Symmetric cubic graphs with solvable automorphism groups, {\em European J. Combin.} {\bf 45} (2015), 1-11] that a cubic symmetric graph with a solvable automorphism group is either a Cayley graph or a $2$-regular graph of type $2^2$, that is, a graph with no automorphism of order $2$ interchanging two adjacent vertices. In this paper an infinite family of non-Cayley cubic $2$-regular graphs of type $2^2$ with a solvable automorphism group is constructed. The smallest graph in this family has order 6174.
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.
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 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…
Let $S_n$ denote the symmetric group of degree $n$ with $n\geq 3$. Set $S=\{c_n=(1\ 2\ldots \ n),c_n^{-1},(1\ 2)\}$. Let $Γ_n=\mathrm{Cay}(S_n,S)$ be the Cayley graph on $S_n$ with respect to $S$. In this paper, we show that $Γ_n$ ($n\geq 13$) is a normal Cayley graph, and that the full automorphism group of $Γ_n$ is equal to $\mathrm{Aut}(Γ_n)=R(S_n)\rtimes \langle\mathrm{Inn}(ϕ)\rangle\cong S_n\rtimes \mathbb{Z}_2$, where $R(S_n)$ is the right regular representation of $S_n$, $ϕ=(1\ 2)(3\ n)(4\ n-1)(5\ n-2)\cdots$ $(\in S_n)$, and $\mathrm{Inn}(ϕ)$ is the inner isomorphism of $S_n$ induced b…
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-…
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 graphical regular representation (GRR) of a group $G$ is a Cayley graph of $G$ whose full automorphism group is equal to the right regular permutation representation of $G$. Towards a proof of the conjecture that only finitely many finite simple groups have no cubic GRR, this paper shows that $\mathrm{PSU}_3(q)$ has a cubic GRR if and only if $q\geq4$. Moreover, a cubic GRR of $\mathrm{PSU}_3(q)$ is constructed for each of these $q$.
We discuss conjectures on Hamiltonicity in cubic graphs (Tait, Barnette, Tutte), on the dichromatic number of planar oriented graphs (Neumann-Lara), and on even graphs in digraphs whose contraction is strongly connected (Hochstättler). We show that all of them fit into the same framework related to cuts in matchings. This allows us to find a counterexample to the conjecture of Hochstättler and show that the conjecture of Neumann-Lara holds for all planar graphs on at most 26 vertices. Finally, we state a new conjecture on bipartite cubic oriented graphs, that naturally arises in this setting.
A balanced graph is a bipartite graph with no induced circuit of length 2 mod 4. These graphs arise in linear programming. We focus on graph-algebraic properties of balanced graphs to prove a complete classification of balanced Cayley graphs on abelian groups. Moreover, in Section 5 of this paper, we prove that there is no cubic balanced planar graph. Finally, some remarkable conjectures for balanced regular graphs are also presented.
We describe a new class of maximal cliques, with a vector space structure, of Cayley graphs defined on the additive group of a field. In particular, we show that in the cubic Paley graph with order $q^3$, the subfield with $q$ elements forms a maximal clique. Similar statements also hold for quadruple Paley graphs and Peisert graphs with quartic order.
The connective constant $μ(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the exponential growth rate of the number of self-avoiding walks starting at a given vertex. We investigate the validity of the inequality $μ\ge ϕ$ for infinite, transitive, simple, cubic graphs, where $ϕ:= \frac12(1+\sqrt 5)$ is the golden mean. The inequality is proved for several families of graphs including (i) Cayley graphs of infinite groups with three generators and strictly positive first Betti number, (ii) infinite, transitive, topologically locally finite (TLF) planar, cubic graphs, and (iii) cubic Cayley graphs with two ends. Bounds f…
We determine the spectra of cubic plane graphs whose faces have sizes 3 and 6. Such graphs, "(3,6)-fullerenes", have been studied by chemists who are interested in their energy spectra. In particular we prove a conjecture of Fowler, which asserts that all their eigenvalues come in pairs of the form $\{λ,-λ\}$ except for the four eigenvalues $\{3,-1,-1,-1\}$. We exhibit other families of graphs which are "spectrally nearly bipartite" in this sense. Our proof utilizes a geometric representation to recognize the algebraic structure of these graphs, which turn out to be examples of Cayley sum grap…
Let $G$ be a graph of even order and let $K_{G}$ be the complete graph on the same vertex set of $G$. A pairing of a graph $G$ is a perfect matching of the graph $K_{G}$. A graph $G$ has the Pairing-Hamiltonian property (for short, the PH-property) if for each one of its pairings, there exists a perfect matching of $G$ such that the union of the two gives rise to a Hamiltonian cycle of $K_G$. In 2015, Alahmadi \emph{et al.} gave a complete characterisation of the cubic graphs having the PH-property. Most naturally, the next step is to characterise the quartic graphs that have the PH-property. …
Finding general conditions which ensure that a graph is Hamiltonian is a central topic in graph theory. An old and well known conjecture in the area states that any $d$-regular $n$-vertex graph $G$ whose second largest eigenvalue in absolute value $λ(G)$ is at most $\frac{d}{C}$, for some universal constant $C>0$, has a Hamilton cycle. In this paper, we obtain two main results which make substantial progress towards this problem. Firstly, we settle this conjecture in full when the degree $d$ is at least a small power of $n$. Secondly, in the general case we show that $λ(G) \leq \frac{d}{C(\log…
If X is any connected Cayley graph on any finite abelian group, we determine precisely which flows on X can be written as a sum of hamiltonian cycles. (This answers a question of Brian Alspach.) In particular, if the degree of X is at least 5, and X has an even number of vertices, then the flows that can be so written are precisely the even flows, that is, the flows f, such that the sum of the edge-flows of f is divisible by 2. On the other hand, there are examples of degree 4 in which not all even flows can be written as a sum of hamiltonian cycles. Analogous results were already known, from …
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.
Barnette's Conjecture claims that all cubic, 3-connected, planar, bipartite graphs are Hamiltonian. We give a translation of this conjecture into the matching-theoretic setting. This allows us to relax the requirement of planarity to give the equivalent conjecture that all cubic, 3-connected, Pfaffian, bipartite graphs are Hamiltonian. A graph, other than the path of length three, is a brace if it is bipartite and any two disjoint edges are part of a perfect matching. Our perspective allows us to observe that Barnette's Conjecture can be reduced to cubic, planar braces. We show a similar reduc…
A graph $G$ has the Perfect-Matching-Hamiltonian property (PMH-property) if for each one of its perfect matchings, there is another perfect matching of $G$ such that the union of the two perfect matchings yields a Hamiltonian cycle of $G$. The study of graphs that have the PMH-property, initiated in the 1970s by Las Vergnas and Häggkvist, combines three well-studied properties of graphs, namely matchings, Hamiltonicity and edge-colourings. In this work, we study these concepts for cubic graphs in an attempt to characterise those cubic graphs for which every perfect matching corresponds to one …
We generalise the standard constructions of a Cayley graph in terms of a group presentation by allowing some vertices to obey different relators than others. The resulting notion of presentation allows us to represent every vertex transitive graph. As an intermediate step, we prove that every countably infinite, connected, vertex transitive graph has a perfect matching. Incidentally, we construct an example of a 2-ended cubic vertex transitive graph which is not a Cayley graph, answering a question of Watkins from 1990.
We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a cubic graph to be Hamiltonian by analyzing Eulerian tours in certain spanning subgraphs of the quartic graph associated with the cubic graph by 1-factor contraction. This correspondence is most useful in the case when it induces a blue and red 2-factorization of the associated quartic graph. We use this condition to characterize the Hamiltonian I-graphs, a further generalization of generalized Petersen graphs. The characterization of Hamiltonian I-graphs follows from the fact that one can choose a 1-factor in any I-graph in such a way that the…
Generating the symmetric group by three prefix reversals
Indiana University(印第安纳大学);Krasovskii Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics(克拉索夫斯基数学与力学研究所);Ural Mathematical Center(乌拉尔数学中心);Sobolev Institute of Mathematics(索博列夫数学研究所);Novosibirsk State University(新西伯利亚国立大学);Three Gorges Mathematical Research Center, China Three Gorges University(三峡大学三峡数学研究中心)
We construct small cancellation labellings for some infinite sequences of finite graphs of bounded degree. We use them to define infinite graphical small cancellation presentations of groups. This technique allows us to provide examples of groups with exotic properties: - We construct the first examples of finitely generated coarsely non-amenable groups (that is, groups without Guoliang Yu's Property A) that are coarsely embeddable into a Hilbert space. Moreover, our groups act properly on CAT(0) cubical complexes. - We construct the first examples of finitely generated groups, with expanders …