On Cycles in 3-Connected Graphs

 Let G be a 3-connected graph of order n and S a subset of vertices. Denote by δ(S) the minimum degree (in G) of vertices of S. Then we prove that the circumference of G is at least min{|S|, 2δ(S)} if the degree sum of any four independent vertices of S is at least n+6. A cycle C is called S-maximum if there is no cycle C ^′ with |C ^′∩S|>|C∩S|. We also show that if ∑⁴ _i=1 d(a _i)≥n+3+|⋂⁴ _i=1 N(a _i)| for any four independent vertices a ₁, a ₂, a ₃, a ₄ in S, then G has an S-weak-dominating S-maximum cycle C, i.e. an S-maximum cycle such that every component in G−C contains at most one vertex in S. Received: March 9, 1998 Revised: January 7, 1999