Cycles in 2-connected graphs

Let be a class of graphs on n vertices. For an integer c, let be the smallest integer such that if G is a graph in with more than edges, then G contains a cycle of length more than c. A classical result of Erdös and Gallai is that if is the class of all simple graphs on n vertices, then . The result is best possible when n-1 is divisible by c-1, in view of the graph consisting of copies of K_c all having exactly one vertex in common. Woodall improved the result by giving best possible bounds for the remaining cases when n-1 is not divisible by c-1, and conjectured that if is the class of all 2-connected simple graphs on n vertices, thenwhere , 2tc/2, is the number of edges in the graph obtained from K_c+1-t by adding n-(c+1-t) isolated vertices each joined to the same t vertices of K_c+1-t. By using a result of Woodall together with an edge-switching technique, we confirm Woodall's conjecture in this paper.