Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:49:04.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

CLASSIFICATION OF TETRAVALENT $\textbf{2}$-TRANSITIVE NONNORMAL CAYLEY GRAPHS OF FINITE SIMPLE GROUPS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2021

XIN GUI FANG
Affiliation:
LAMA and School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing100871, P. R. China e-mail: [email protected]
JIE WANG
Affiliation:
LAMA and School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing100871, P. R. China e-mail: [email protected]
SANMING ZHOU*
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia

Abstract

A graph $\Gamma $ is called $(G, s)$ -arc-transitive if $G \le \text{Aut} (\Gamma )$ is transitive on the set of vertices of $\Gamma $ and the set of s-arcs of $\Gamma $ , where for an integer $s \ge 1$ an s-arc of $\Gamma $ is a sequence of $s+1$ vertices $(v_0,v_1,\ldots ,v_s)$ of $\Gamma $ such that $v_{i-1}$ and $v_i$ are adjacent for $1 \le i \le s$ and $v_{i-1}\ne v_{i+1}$ for $1 \le i \le s-1$ . A graph $\Gamma $ is called 2-transitive if it is $(\text{Aut} (\Gamma ), 2)$ -arc-transitive but not $(\text{Aut} (\Gamma ), 3)$ -arc-transitive. A Cayley graph $\Gamma $ of a group G is called normal if G is normal in $\text{Aut} (\Gamma )$ and nonnormal otherwise. Fang et al. [‘On edge transitive Cayley graphs of valency four’, European J. Combin.25 (2004), 1103–1116] proved that if $\Gamma $ is a tetravalent 2-transitive Cayley graph of a finite simple group G, then either $\Gamma $ is normal or G is one of the groups $\text{PSL}_2(11)$ , ${\rm M} _{11}$ , $\text{M} _{23}$ and $A_{11}$ . However, it was unknown whether $\Gamma $ is normal when G is one of these four groups. We answer this question by proving that among these four groups only $\text{M} _{11}$ produces connected tetravalent 2-transitive nonnormal Cayley graphs. We prove further that there are exactly two such graphs which are nonisomorphic and both are determined in the paper. As a consequence, the automorphism group of any connected tetravalent 2-transitive Cayley graph of any finite simple group is determined.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2020 Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

X. G. Fang and J. Wang were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11931005). S. Zhou was supported by the Research Grant Support Scheme of The University of Melbourne.

References

Conway, J. H., Curtis, R. T., Norton, S. P., Parker, R. A. and Wilson, R. A., Atlas of Finite Groups (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985).Google Scholar
Fang, X. G., Li, C. H. and Xu, M. Y., ‘On edge transitive Cayley graphs of valency four’, European J. Combin. 25 (2004), 11031116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fang, X. G. and Praeger, C. E., ‘Finite two-arc transitive graphs admitting a Suzuki simple group’, Comm. Algebra 27 (1999), 37273754.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fang, X. G., Praeger, C. E. and Wang, J., ‘On the automorphism group of Cayley graphs of finite simple groups’, J. Lond. Math. Soc. 66(2) (2002), 563578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godsil, C. D., ‘On the full automorphism group of a graph’, Combinatorica 1 (1981), 243256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guo, S. T., Feng, Y. Q. and Li, C. H., ‘Edge-primitive tetravalent graphs’, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 112 (2015), 124137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guralnick, R. M., ‘Subgroups of prime power index in a simple group’, J. Algebra 81 (1983), 304311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorimer, P., ‘Vertex-transitive graphs: symmetric graphs of prime valency’, J. Graph Theory 8 (1984), 5568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potočnik, P., ‘A list of 4-valent 2-arc transitive graphs and finite faithful amalgams of index $\left(4,2\right)$ ’, European J. Combin. 30 (2009), 1323–1136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabiddusi, G. O., ‘Vertex-transitive graphs’, Monatsh. Math. 68 (1964), 426438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The GAP Group, GAP – Reference Manual, Release 4.7.2, 2013, http://www.gap-system.org.Google Scholar
Xu, M. Y., ‘Automorphism groups and isomorphisms of Cayley graphs’, Discrete Math. 182 (1998), 309319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, S. J., Fang, X. G., Wang, J. and Xu, M. Y., ‘On cubic $s$ -arc transitive Cayley graphs of finite simple groups’, European J. Combin. 26 (2005), 133143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, S. J., Fang, X. G., Wang, J. and Xu, M. Y., ‘ $5$ -arc transitive cubic Cayley graphs on finite simple groups’, European J. Combin. 28 (2007), 10231036.CrossRefGoogle Scholar