On almost distance-regular graphs

Distance-regular graphs are a key concept in Algebraic Combinatorics and have given rise to several generalizations, such as association schemes. Motivated by spectral and other algebraic characterizations of distance-regular graphs, we study ‘almost distance-regular graphs’. We use this name informally for graphs that share some regularity properties that are related to distance in the graph. For example, a known characterization of a distance-regular graph is the invariance of the number of walks of given length between vertices at a given distance, while a graph is called walk-regular if the number of closed walks of given length rooted at any given vertex is a constant. One of the concepts studied here is a generalization of both distance-regularity and walk-regularity called m-walk-regularity. Another studied concept is that of m-partial distance-regularity or, informally, distance-regularity up to distance m. Using eigenvalues of graphs and the predistance polynomials, we discuss and relate these and other concepts of almost distance-regularity, such as their common generalization of (?,m)-walk-regularity. We introduce the concepts of punctual distance-regularity and punctual walk-regularity as a fundament upon which almost distance-regular graphs are built. We provide examples that are mostly taken from the Foster census, a collection of symmetric cubic graphs. Two problems are posed that are related to the question of when almost distance-regular becomes whole distance-regular. We also give several characterizations of punctually distance-regular graphs that are generalizations of the spectral excess theorem.     

Geometric aspects of 2-walk-regular graphs

A t-walk-regular graph is a graph for which the number of walks of given length between two vertices depends only on the distance between these two vertices, as long as this distance is at most t. Such graphs generalize distance-regular graphs and t-arc-transitive graphs. In this paper, we will focus on 1- and in particular 2-walk-regular graphs, and study analogues of certain results that are important for distance-regular graphs. We will generalize Delsarte?s clique bound to 1-walk-regular graphs, Godsil?s multiplicity bound and Terwilliger?s analysis of the local structure to 2-walk-regular graphs. We will show that 2-walk-regular graphs have a much richer combinatorial structure than 1-walk-regular graphs, for example by proving that there are finitely many non-geometric 2-walk-regular graphs with given smallest eigenvalue and given diameter (a geometric graph is the point graph of a special partial linear space); a result that is analogous to a result on distance-regular graphs. Such a result does not hold for 1-walk-regular graphs, as our construction methods will show.     

Distance-balanced graphs: Symmetry conditions

A graph X is said to be distance-balanced if for any edge uv of X, the number of vertices closer to u than to v is equal to the number of vertices closer to v than to u. A graph X is said to be strongly distance-balanced if for any edge uv of X and any integer k, the number of vertices at distance k from u and at distance k+1 from v is equal to the number of vertices at distance k+1 from u and at distance k from v. Exploring the connection between symmetry properties of graphs and the metric property of being (strongly) distance-balanced is the main theme of this article. That a vertex-transitive graph is necessarily strongly distance-balanced and thus also distance-balanced is an easy observation. With only a slight relaxation of the transitivity condition, the situation changes drastically: there are infinite families of semisymmetric graphs (that is, graphs which are edge-transitive, but not vertex-transitive) which are distance-balanced, but there are also infinite families of semisymmetric graphs which are not distance-balanced. Results on the distance-balanced property in product graphs prove helpful in obtaining these constructions. Finally, a complete classification of strongly distance-balanced graphs is given for the following infinite families of generalized Petersen graphs: GP(n,2), GP(5k+1,k), GP(3k±3,k), and GP(2k+2,k).     

On almost self-complementary graphs

A graph is called almost self-complementary if it is isomorphic to one of its almost complements X^c-I, where X^c denotes the complement of X and I a perfect matching (1-factor) in X^c. Almost self-complementary circulant graphs were first studied by Dobson and Šajna [Almost self-complementary circulant graphs, Discrete Math. 278 (2004) 23-44]. In this paper we investigate some of the properties and constructions of general almost self-complementary graphs. In particular, we give necessary and sufficient conditions on the order of an almost self-complementary regular graph, and construct infinite families of almost self-complementary regular graphs, almost self-complementary vertex-transitive graphs, and non-cyclically almost self-complementary circulant graphs.     

Tetravalent Vertex-Transitive Graphs of Order Twice A Prime Square

A graph is vertex-transitive if its automorphism group acts transitively on vertices of the graph. A vertex-transitive graph is a Cayley graph if its automorphism group contains a subgroup acting regularly on its vertices. In this paper, a complete classification is given of tetravalent vertex-transitive non-Cayley graphs of order \(2p^2\) for any prime p.     

Hamiltonicity of 3-Arc Graphs

An arc of a graph is an oriented edge and a 3-arc is a 4-tuple (v, u, x, y) of vertices such that both (v, u, x) and (u, x, y) are paths of length two. The 3-arc graph of a graph G is defined to have vertices the arcs of G such that two arcs uv, xy are adjacent if and only if (v, u, x, y) is a 3-arc of G. We prove that any connected 3-arc graph is hamiltonian, and all iterative 3-arc graphs of any connected graph of minimum degree at least three are hamiltonian. As a corollary we obtain that any vertex-transitive graph which is isomorphic to the 3-arc graph of a connected arc-transitive graph of degree at least three must be hamiltonian. This confirms the conjecture, for this family of vertex-transitive graphs, that all vertex-transitive graphs with finitely many exceptions are hamiltonian. We also prove that if a graph with at least four vertices is Hamilton-connected, then so are its iterative 3-arc graphs.     

On perturbations of almost distance-regular graphs

In this paper we show that certain almost distance-regular graphs, the so-called h-punctually walk-regular graphs, can be characterized through the cospectrality of their perturbed graphs. A graph G with diameter D is called h-punctually walk-regular, for a given h≤D, if the number of paths of length ? between a pair of vertices u,v at distance h depends only on ?. The graph perturbations considered here are deleting a vertex, adding a loop, adding a pendant edge, adding/removing an edge, amalgamating vertices, and adding a bridging vertex. We show that for walk-regular graphs some of these operations are equivalent, in the sense that one perturbation produces cospectral graphs if and only if the others do. Our study is based on the theory of graph perturbations developed by Cvetkovi?, Godsil, McKay, Rowlinson, Schwenk, and others. As a consequence, some new characterizations of distance-regular graphs are obtained.     

The vertex-transitive TLF-planar graphs

We consider the class of the topologically locally finite (in short TLF) planar vertex-transitive graphs. We characterize these graphs by finite combinatorial objects called labeling schemes. As a result, we are able to enumerate and describe all TLF-planar vertex-transitive graphs of given degree, as well as most of their transitive groups of automorphisms. In addition,we are able to decide whether a given TLF-planar transitive graph is Cayley or not. This class contains all the one-ended planar Cayley graphs and the normal transitive tilings of the plane.     

Arc transitive covering digraphs and their eigenvalues

We prove that every finite regular digraph has an arc-transitive covering digraph (whose arcs are equivalent under automorphisms) and every finite regular graph has a 2-arc-transitive covering graph. As a corollary, we sharpen C. D. Godsil's results on eigenvalues and minimum polynomials of vertex-transitive graphs and digraphs. Using Godsil's results, we prove, that given an integral matrix A there exists an arc-transitive digraph X such that the minimum polynomial of A divides that of X. It follows that there exist arc-transitive digraphs with nondiagonalizable adjacency matrices, answering a problem by P. J. Cameron. For symmetric matrices A, we construct a 2-arc-transitive graphs X.     

Spectral Characterizations of Some Distance-Regular Graphs

When can one see from the spectrum of a graph whether it is distance-regular or not? We give some new results for when this is the case. As a consequence we find (among others) that the following distance-regular graphs are uniquely determined by their spectrum: The collinearity graphs of the generalized octagons of order (2,1), (3,1) and (4,1), the Biggs-Smith graph, the M ₂₂ graph, and the coset graphs of the doubly truncated binary Golay code and the extended ternary Golay code.     

Cubic edge-transitive graphs of order 2p3

Let p be a prime. It was shown by Folkman (J. Combin. Theory 3 (1967) 215) that a regular edge-transitive graph of order 2p or 2p² is necessarily vertex-transitive. In this paper an extension of his result in the case of cubic graphs is given. It is proved that, with the exception of the Gray graph on 54 vertices, every cubic edge-transitive graph of order 2p³ is vertex-transitive.     

Cubic vertex-transitive non-Cayley graphs of order 12<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>

A graph is said to be 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 equals 5, 7 or 17, and the infinite family exists if and only if p ≡ 1 (mod 4), and in this family there is a unique graph for a given order.     

Nowhere-zero eigenvectors of graphs

A vector is called nowhere-zero if it has no zero entry. In this article we search for graphs with nowhere-zero eigenvectors. We prove that distance-regular graphs and vertex-transitive graphs have nowhere-zero eigenvectors for all of their eigenvalues and edge-transitive graphs have nowhere-zero eigenvectors for all non-zero eigenvalues. Among other results, it is shown that a graph with three distinct eigenvalues has a nowhere-zero eigenvector for its smallest eigenvalue.     

The spectral excess theorem for distance-regular graphs having distance-<Emphasis Type="Italic">d</Emphasis> graph with fewer distinct eigenvalues

Let \(\Gamma \) be a distance-regular graph with diameter d and Kneser graph \(K=\Gamma _d\), the distance-d graph of \(\Gamma \). We say that \(\Gamma \) is partially antipodal when K has fewer distinct eigenvalues than \(\Gamma \). In particular, this is the case of antipodal distance-regular graphs (K with only two distinct eigenvalues) and the so-called half-antipodal distance-regular graphs (K with only one negative eigenvalue). We provide a characterization of partially antipodal distance-regular graphs (among regular graphs with \(d+1\) distinct eigenvalues) in terms of the spectrum and the mean number of vertices at maximal distance d from every vertex. This can be seen as a more general version of the so-called spectral excess theorem, which allows us to characterize those distance-regular graphs which are half-antipodal, antipodal, bipartite, or with Kneser graph being strongly regular.     

Distance-regular graphs of large diameter that are completely regular clique graphs

A connected graph is said to be a completely regular clique graph with parameters (s, c), \(s, c \in {\mathbb {N}}\), if there is a collection \(\mathcal {C}\) of completely regular cliques of size \(s+1\) such that every edge is contained in exactly c members of \(\mathcal {C}\). It is known that many families of distance-regular graphs are completely regular clique graphs. In this paper, we determine completely regular clique graph structures, i.e., the choices of \(\mathcal {C}\), of all known families of distance-regular graphs with unbounded diameter. In particular, we show that all distance-regular graphs in this category are completely regular clique graphs except the Doob graphs, the twisted Grassmann graphs and the Hermitean forms graphs. We also determine parameters (s, c); however, in a few cases we determine only s and give a bound on the value c. Our result is a generalization of a series of works by J. Hemmeter and others who determined distance-regular graphs in this category that are bipartite halves of bipartite distance-regular graphs.     

Eigenvalues of graphs and digraphs

We show that given a digraph X there is a vertex-transitive digraph Y such that the minimal polynomial of X divides that of Y. Two consequences of this are that there exist vertex-transitive digraphs with nondiagonalizable adjacency matrices and that any algebraic integer is the eigenvalue of some vertex-transitive digraph.     

Edge-transitive products

This paper concerns finite, edge-transitive direct and strong products, as well as infinite weak Cartesian products. We prove that the direct product of two connected, non-bipartite graphs is edge-transitive if and only if both factors are edge-transitive and at least one is arc-transitive, or one factor is edge-transitive and the other is a complete graph with loops at each vertex. Also, a strong product is edge-transitive if and only if all factors are complete graphs. In addition, a connected, infinite non-trivial Cartesian product graph G is edge-transitive if and only if it is vertex-transitive and if G is a finite weak Cartesian power of a connected, edge- and vertex-transitive graph H, or if G is the weak Cartesian power of a connected, bipartite, edge-transitive graph H that is not vertex-transitive.     

Distance mean-regular graphs

We introduce the concept of distance mean-regular graph, which can be seen as a generalization of both vertex-transitive and distance-regular graphs. Let \(\Gamma \) be a graph with vertex set V, diameter D, adjacency matrix \(\varvec{A}\), and adjacency algebra \(\mathcal{A}\). Then, \(\Gamma \) is distance mean-regular when, for a given \(u\in V\), the averages of the intersection numbers \(p_{ij}^h(u,v)=|\Gamma _i(u)\cap \Gamma _j(v)|\) (number of vertices at distance i from u and distance j from v) computed over all vertices v at a given distance \(h\in \{0,1,\ldots ,D\}\) from u, do not depend on u. In this work we study some properties and characterizations of these graphs. For instance, it is shown that a distance mean-regular graph is always distance degree-regular, and we give a condition for the converse to be also true. Some algebraic and spectral properties of distance mean-regular graphs are also investigated. We show that, for distance mean regular-graphs, the role of the distance matrices of distance-regular graphs is played for the so-called distance mean-regular matrices. These matrices are computed from a sequence of orthogonal polynomials evaluated at the adjacency matrix of \(\Gamma \) and, hence, they generate a subalgebra of \(\mathcal{A}\). Some other algebras associated to distance mean-regular graphs are also characterized.     

Some results on the lexicographic product of vertex-transitive graphs

Many large graphs can be constructed from existing smaller graphs by using graph operations, for example, the Cartesian product and the lexicographic product. Many properties of such large graphs are closely related to those of the corresponding smaller ones. In this short note, we give some properties of the lexicographic products of vertex-transitive and of edge-transitive graphs. In particular, we show that the lexicographic product of Cayley graphs is a Cayley graph.     

Semisymmetric graphs

Let be a regular covering projection of connected graphs with the group of covering transformations isomorphic to N. If N is an elementary abelian p-group, then the projection ℘_N is called p-elementary abelian. The projection ℘_N is vertex-transitive (edge-transitive) if some vertex-transitive (edge-transitive) subgroup of the automorphism group of X lifts along ℘_N, and semisymmetric if it is edge- but not vertex-transitive. The projection ℘_N is minimal semisymmetric if it cannot be written as a composition ℘_N=℘℘_M of two (nontrivial) regular covering projections, where ℘_M is semisymmetric.Malni? et al. [Semisymmetric elementary abelian covers of the Möbius-Kantor graph, Discrete Math. 307 (2007) 2156-2175] determined all pairwise nonisomorphic minimal semisymmetric elementary abelian regular covering projections of the Möbius-Kantor graph, the Generalized Petersen graph GP(8,3), by explicitly giving the corresponding voltage rules generating the covering projections. It was remarked at the end of the above paper that the covering graphs arising from these covering projections need not themselves be semisymmetric (a graph with regular valency is said to be semisymmetric if its automorphism group is edge- but not vertex-transitive). In this paper it is shown that all these covering graphs are indeed semisymmetric.