5-Arc transitive cubic Cayley graphs on finite simple groups

AbstractIn this paper, we determine all connected 5-arc transitive cubic Cayley graphs on the alternating group A47; there are only two such graphs (up to isomorphism). By earlier work of the authors, these are the only two non-normal connected cubic arc-transitive Cayley graphs for finite nonabelian simple groups, and so this paper completes the classification of such non-normal Cayley graphs

Arc-transitive cubic abelian bi-Cayley graphs and BCI-graphs

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 group. A $0$-type graph can be represented as the graph $\mathrm{BCay}(H,S),$ where $S$ is a subset of $H,$ the vertex set of which consists of two copies of $H,$ say $H_0$ and $H_1,$ and the edge set is $\{\{h_0,g_1\} : h,g \in H, g h^{-1} \in S\}$. A bi-Cayley graph $\mathrm{BCay}(H,S)$ is called a BCI-graph if for any bi-Cayley graph $\mathrm{BCay}(H,T),$ $\mathrm{BCay}(H,S) \cong \mathrm{BCay}(H,T)$ implies that $T = h S^\alpha$ for some $h \in H$ and $\alpha \in \mathrm{Aut}(H)$. It is also shown that every cubic connected arc-transitive $0$-type bi-Cayley graph over an abelian group is a BCI-graph

Cubic vertex-transitive graphs on up to 1280 vertices

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

A classification of nilpotent 3-BCI groups

Given a finite group $G$ and a subset $S\subseteq G,$ the bi-Cayley graph \bcay(G,S) is the graph whose vertex set is $G \times \{0,1\}$ and edge set is $\{\{(x,0),(s x,1)\} : x \in G, s\in S \}$. A bi-Cayley graph \bcay(G,S) is called a BCI-graph if for any bi-Cayley graph \bcay(G,T), \bcay(G,S) \cong \bcay(G,T) implies that $T = g S^\alpha$ for some $g \in G$ and \alpha \in \aut(G). A group $G$ is called an $m$-BCI-group if all bi-Cayley graphs of $G$ of valency at most $m$ are BCI-graphs.In this paper we prove that, a finite nilpotent group is a 3-BCI-group if and only if it is in the form $U \times V,$ where $U$ is a homocyclic group of odd order, and $V$ is trivial or one of the groups $\Z_{2^r},$ $\Z_2^r$ and \Q_8

Nowhere-zero 3-flows in graphs admitting solvable arc-transitive groups of automorphisms

Tutte's 3-flow conjecture asserts that every 4-edge-connected graph has a nowhere-zero 3-flow. In this note we prove that every regular graph of valency at least four admitting a solvable arc-transitive group of automorphisms admits a nowhere-zero 3-flow.Comment: This is the final version to be published in: Ars Mathematica Contemporanea (http://amc-journal.eu/index.php/amc

Semiregular elements in cubic vertex-transitive graphs and the restricted Burnside problem

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.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur

Arc-transitive bicirculants

In this paper, we characterise the family of finite arc-transitive bicirculants. We show that every finite arc-transitive bicirculant is a normal $r$-cover of an arc-transitive graph that lies in one of eight infinite families or is one of seven sporadic arc-transitive graphs. Moreover, each of these ``basic'' graphs is either an arc-transitive bicirculant or an arc-transitive circulant, and each graph in the latter case has an arc-transitive bicirculant normal $r$-cover for some integer $r$

On cubic symmetric non-Cayley graphs with solvable automorphism groups

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.Comment: 8 page

Hamiltonicity of Cubic Cayley Graphs

Following a problem posed by Lov\'asz 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.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Edge-transitive bi-Cayley graphs

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-transitive normal bi-Cayley graphs. Using this, we investigate three classes of bi-Cayley graphs, namely those over abelian groups, dihedral groups and metacyclic $p$-groups. We find that under certain conditions, `normal edge-transitive' is the same as `normal' for graphs in these three classes. As a by-product, we obtain a complete classification of all connected trivalent edge-transitive graphs of girth at most $6$, and answer some open questions from the literature about $2$-arc-transitive, half-arc-transitive and semisymmetric graphs