The twisted Grassmann graph is the block graph of a design

In this note, we show that the twisted Grassmann graph constructed by van Dam and Koolen is the block graph of the design constructed by Jungnickel and Tonchev. We also show that the full automorphism group of the design is isomorphic to the full automorphism group of the twisted Grassmann graph.Comment: 5 pages. A section on the automorphism group has been adde

Commutative association schemes

Association schemes were originally introduced by Bose and his co-workers in the design of statistical experiments. Since that point of inception, the concept has proved useful in the study of group actions, in algebraic graph theory, in algebraic coding theory, and in areas as far afield as knot theory and numerical integration. This branch of the theory, viewed in this collection of surveys as the "commutative case," has seen significant activity in the last few decades. The goal of the present survey is to discuss the most important new developments in several directions, including Gelfand pairs, cometric association schemes, Delsarte Theory, spin models and the semidefinite programming technique. The narrative follows a thread through this list of topics, this being the contrast between combinatorial symmetry and group-theoretic symmetry, culminating in Schrijver's SDP bound for binary codes (based on group actions) and its connection to the Terwilliger algebra (based on combinatorial symmetry). We propose this new role of the Terwilliger algebra in Delsarte Theory as a central topic for future work.Comment: 36 page

Remarks on pseudo-vertex-transitive graphs with small diameter

Let $\Gamma$ denote a $Q$-polynomial distance-regular graph with vertex set $X$ and diameter $D$. Let $A$ denote the adjacency matrix of $\Gamma$. For a vertex $x\in X$ and for $0 \leq i \leq D$, let $E^*_i(x)$ denote the projection matrix to the $i$th subconstituent space of $\Gamma$ with respect to $x$. The Terwilliger algebra $T(x)$ of $\Gamma$ with respect to $x$ is the semisimple subalgebra of $\mathrm{Mat}_X(\mathbb{C})$ generated by $A, E^*_0(x), \ldots, E^*_D(x)$. Let $V=\mathbb{C}^X$ denote a $\mathbb{C}$-vector space consisting of complex column vectors with rows indexed by $X$. We say $\Gamma$ is pseudo-vertex-transitive whenever for any vertices $x,y \in X$, both (i) the Terwilliger algebras $T(x)$ and $T(y)$ of $\Gamma$ are isomorphic; and (ii) there exists a $\mathbb{C}$-vector space isomorphism $\rho:V\to V$ such that $(\rho A - A \rho)V=0$ and $(\rho E^*_i(x) - E^*_i(y)\rho)V=0$ for all $0\leq i \leq D$. In this paper we discuss pseudo-vertex transitivity for distance-regular graphs with diameter $D\in \{2,3,4\}$. In the case of diameter two, a strongly regular graph $\Gamma$ is thin, and $\Gamma$ is pseudo-vertex-transitive if and only if every local graph of $\Gamma$ has the same spectrum. In the case of diameter three, Taylor graphs are thin and pseudo-vertex-transitive. In the case of diameter four, antipodal tight graphs are thin and pseudo-vertex-transitive.Comment: 29 page