On tetravalent half-arc-transitive graphs of girth 5

A subgroup of the automorphism group of a graph \G is said to be {\em half-arc-transitive} on \G if its action on \G is transitive on the vertex set of \G and on the edge set of \G but not on the arc set of \G. Tetravalent graphs of girths $3$ and $4$ admitting a half-arc-transitive group of automorphisms have previously been characterized. In this paper we study the examples of girth $5$. We show that, with two exceptions, all such graphs only have directed $5$-cycles with respect to the corresponding induced orientation of the edges. Moreover, we analyze the examples with directed $5$-cycles, study some of their graph theoretic properties and prove that the $5$-cycles of such graphs are always consistent cycles for the given half-arc-transitive group. We also provide infinite families of examples, classify the tetravalent graphs of girth $5$ admitting a half-arc-transitive group of automorphisms relative to which they are tightly-attached and classify the tetravalent half-arc-transitive weak metacirculants of girth $5$