A graph is said to be cyclic $k$-edge-connected, if at least $k$ edges must be removed to disconnect it into two components, each containing a cycle. Such a set of $k$ edges is called a cyclic-$k$-edge cutset and it is called a trivial cyclic-$k$-edge cutset if at least one of the resulting two components induces a single $k$-cycle.
It is known that fullerenes, that is, 3-connected cubic planar graphs all of whose faces are pentagons and hexagons, are cyclic 5-edge-connected. In this article it is shown that a fullerene $F$ containing a nontrivial cyclic-5-edge cutset admits two antipodal pentacaps, that is, two antipodal pentagonal faces whose neighboring faces are also pentagonal. Moreover, it is shown that $F$ has a Hamilton cycle, and as a consequence at least $15\cdot 2^{\lfloor \frac{n}{20}\rfloor}$ perfect matchings, where $n$ is the order of $F$.
Let $G$ be a cyclically $5$-connected cubic graph with a $5$-edge-cut separating $G$ into two cyclic components $G_1$ and $G_2$. We prove that each component $G_i$ can be completed to a cyclically $5$-connected cubic graph by adding three vertices, unless $G_i$ is a cycle of length five. Our work extends similar results by Andersen et al. for cyclic connectivity $4$ from 1988.
The cyclic edge-connectivity of a graph $G$ is the least $k$ such that there exists a set of $k$ edges whose removal disconnects $G$ into components where every component contains a cycle. We show that for graphs of minimum degree at least 3 and girth $g$ at least 4, the cyclic edge-connectivity is bounded above by $(Δ-2)g$ where $Δ$ is the maximum degree. We then prove that if the second eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of a $d$-regular graph of girth $g\geq4$ is sufficiently small, then the cyclic edge-connectivity is $(d-2)g$, providing a spectral condition for when this upper bound on cy…
Let $n=p_1^{n_1}p_2^{n_2}\ldots p_r^{n_r}$, where $r,n_1,\ldots, n_r$ are positive integers and $p_1,p_2,\ldots,p_r$ are distinct prime numbers with $p_1<p_2<\cdots <p_r$. For the cyclic group $C_n$ of order $n$, let $\mathcal{P}(C_n)$ be the power graph of $C_n$ and $κ(\mathcal{P}(C_n))$ be the vertex connectivity of $\mathcal{P}(C_n)$. It is known that $κ(\mathcal{P}(C_n))=p_1^{n_1} -1$ if $r=1$. For $r\geq 2$, we determine the exact value of $κ(\mathcal{P}(C_n))$ when $2ϕ(p_1\ldots p_{r-1})\geq p_1\ldots p_{r-1}$, and give an upper bound for $κ(\mathcal{P}(C_n))$ when $2ϕ(p_1\ldots p_{r-1})…
The power graph $\mathcal{P}(G)$ of a given finite group $G$ is the simple undirected graph whose vertices are the elements of $G$, in which two distinct vertices are adjacent if and only if one of them can be obtained as an integral power of the other. The vertex connectivity $κ(\mathcal{P}(G))$ of $\mathcal{P}(G)$ is the minimum number of vertices which need to be removed from $G$ so that the induced subgraph of $\mathcal{P}(G)$ on the remaining vertices is disconnected or has only one vertex. For a positive integer $n$, let $C_n$ be the cyclic group of order $n$. Suppose that the prime powe…
The power graph of a group $G$ is the graph whose vertex set is $G$ and two distinct vertices are adjacent if one is a power of the other. In this paper, the minimum degree of power graphs of certain classes of cyclic groups, abelian $p$-groups, dihedral groups and dicyclic groups are obtained. It is ascertained that the edge-connectivity and minimum degree of power graphs are equal, and consequently the minimum disconnecting sets of power graphs of the aforementioned groups are determined. Then the equality of connectivity and minimum degree of power graphs of finite groups is investigated an…
The family of snarks -- connected bridgeless cubic graphs that cannot be 3-edge-coloured -- is well-known as a potential source of counterexamples to several important and long-standing conjectures in graph theory. These include the cycle double cover conjecture, Tutte's 5-flow conjecture, Fulkerson's conjecture, and several others. One way of approaching these conjectures is through the study of structural properties of snarks and construction of small examples with given properties. In this paper we deal with the problem of determining the smallest order of a nontrivial snark (that is, one w…
We estimate the minimum number of vertices of a cubic graph with given oddness and cyclic connectivity. We prove that a bridgeless cubic graph $G$ with oddness $ω(G)$ other than the Petersen graph has at least $5.41\cdotω(G)$ vertices, and for each integer $k$ with $2\le k\le 6$ we construct an infinite family of cubic graphs with cyclic connectivity $k$ and small oddness ratio $|V(G)|/ω(G)$. In particular, for cyclic connectivity 2, 4, 5, and 6 we improve the upper bounds on the oddness ratio of snarks to 7.5, 13, 25, and 99 from the known values 9, 15, 76, and 118, respectively. In addition,…
In this paper we consider the number of Hamilton cycles in planar cubic graphs of high cyclic edge-connectivity, answering two questions raised by Chia and Thomassen ("On the number of longest and almost longest cycles in cubic graphs", Ars Combin., 104, 307--320, 2012) about extremal graphs in these families. In particular, we find families of cyclically $5$-edge connected planar cubic graphs with more Hamilton cycles than the generalized Petersen graphs $P(2n,2)$. The graphs themselves are fullerene graphs that correspond to certain carbon molecules known as nanotubes --- more precisely, the…
Reliability evaluation and fault tolerance of an interconnection network of some parallel and distributed systems are discussed separately under various link-faulty hypotheses in terms of different $\mathcal{P}$-conditional edge-connectivity. With the help of edge isoperimetric problem's method in combinatorics, this paper mainly offers a novel and unified view to investigate the $\mathcal{P}$-conditional edge-connectivities of hamming graph $K_{L}^{n}$ with satisfying the property that each minimum $\mathcal{P}$-conditional edge-cut separates the $K_{L}^{n}$ just into two components, such as …
A cubic graph $G$ is cyclically 5-connected if $G$ is simple, 3-connected, has at least 10 vertices and for every set $F$ of edges of size at most four, at most one component of $G\backslash F$ contains circuits. We prove that if $G$ and $H$ are cyclically 5-connected cubic graphs and $H$ topologically contains $G$, then either $G$ and $H$ are isomorphic, or (modulo well-described exceptions) there exists a cyclically 5-connected cubic graph $G'$ such that $H$ topologically contains $G'$ and $G'$ is obtained from $G$ in one of the following two ways. Either $G'$ is obtained from $G$ by subdivi…
Let v(G) and dom(G) denote the number of vertices and the domination number of a graph G, and let r (G) = dom(G)/v(G)$. Let [x] and ]x[ be the floor and the ceiling of a number x. In 1996 B. Reed conjectured that if G is a cubic graph, then dom(G) is at most ]v(G)/3[. In 2005 A. Kostochka and B. Stodolsky disproved this conjecture for cubic graphs of connectivity one and maintained that the conjecture may still be true for 2-connected cubic graphs. Their minimum counterexample C has 4 bridges, v(C) = 60, anddom (C) = 21. In this paper we disprove Reed's conjecture for 2-connected cubic graphs …
The presented paper studies the flow number $F(G,σ)$ of flow-admissible signed graphs $(G,σ)$ with two negative edges. We restrict our study to cubic graphs, because for each non-cubic signed graph $(G,σ)$ there is a set ${\cal G}(G,σ)$ of cubic graphs such that $F(G, σ) \leq \min \{F(H,σ_H) : (H,σ_H) \in {\cal G}(G)\}$. We prove that $F(G,σ) \leq 6$ if $(G,σ)$ contains a bridge and $F(G,σ) \leq 7$ in general. We prove better bounds, if there is an element $(H,σ_H)$ of ${\cal G}(G,σ)$ which satisfies some additional conditions. In particular, if $H$ is bipartite, then $F(G,σ) \leq 4$ and the b…
It is proven that for any integer $g \ge 0$ and $k \in \{ 0, \ldots, 10 \}$, there exist infinitely many 5-regular graphs of genus $g$ containing a 1-factorisation with exactly $k$ pairs of 1-factors that are perfect, i.e. form a hamiltonian cycle. For $g = 0$, this settles a problem of Kotzig from 1964. Motivated by Kotzig and Labelle's "marriage" operation, we discuss two gluing techniques aimed at producing graphs of high cyclic edge-connectivity. We prove that there exist infinitely many planar 5-connected 5-regular graphs in which every 1-factorisation has zero perfect pairs. On the other…
