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Grahame Erskine

Publications and source records attributed to Grahame Erskine.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Large Cayley graphs of small diameter

The degree-diameter problem seeks to find the largest possible number of vertices in a graph having given diameter and given maximum degree. Very often the problem is studied for restricted families of graph such as vertex-transitive or Cayley graphs, with the goal being to find a family of graphs with good asymptotic properties. In this paper we restrict attention to Cayley graphs, and study the asymptotics by fixing a small diameter and constructing families of graphs of large order for all values of the maximum degree. Much of the literature in this direction is focused on the diameter two case. In this paper we consider larger diameters, and use a variety of techniques to derive new best asymptotic constructions for diameters 3, 4 and 5 as well as an improvement to the general bound for all odd diameters. Our diameter 3 construction is, as far as we know, the first to employ matrix groups over finite fields in the degree-diameter problem.

math.CO↗

Mixed Moore Cayley graphs

The degree-diameter problem seeks to find the largest possible number of vertices in a graph having given diameter and given maximum degree. There has been much recent interest in the problem for mixed graphs, where we allow both undirected edges and directed arcs in the graph. For a diameter 2 graph with maximum undirected degree $r$ and directed out-degree $z$, a straightforward counting argument yields an upper bound $M(z,r,2)=(z+r)^2+z+1$ for the order of the graph. Apart from the case $r=1$, the only three known examples of mixed graphs attaining this bound are Cayley graphs, and there are an infinite number of feasible pairs $(r,z)$ where the existence of mixed Moore graphs with these parameters is unknown. We use a combination of elementary group-theoretical arguments and computational techniques to rule out the existence of further examples of mixed Cayley graphs attaining the Moore bound for all orders up to 485.

math.CO↗

Large circulant graphs of fixed diameter and arbitrary degree

We consider the degree-diameter problem for undirected and directed circulant graphs. To date, attempts to generate families of large circulant graphs of arbitrary degree for a given diameter have concentrated mainly on the diameter 2 case. We present a direct product construction yielding improved bounds for small diameters and introduce a new general technique for "stitching" together circulant graphs which enables us to improve the current best known asymptotic orders for every diameter. As an application, we use our constructions in the directed case to obtain upper bounds on the minimum size of a subset $A$ of a cyclic group of order $n$ such that the $k$-fold sumset $kA$ is equal to the whole group. We also present a revised table of largest known circulant graphs of small degree and diameter.

math.CO↗

Groups whose locally maximal product-free sets are complete

Let $G$ be a finite group and $S$ a subset of $G$. Then $S$ is product-free if $S \cap SS = \emptyset$, and complete if $G^{\ast} \subseteq S \cup SS$. A product-free set is locally maximal if it is not contained in a strictly larger product-free set. If $S$ is product-free and complete then $S$ is locally maximal, but the converse does not necessarily hold. Street and Whitehead [J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 17 (1974), 219--226] defined a group $G$ as filled if every locally maximal product-free set $S$ in $G$ is complete (the term comes from their use of the phrase `$S$ fills $G$' to mean $S$ is complete). They classified all abelian filled groups, and conjectured that the finite dihedral group of order $2n$ is not filled when $n=6k+1$ ($k\geq 1$). The conjecture was disproved by two of the current authors in [Austral. J. Combin. 63 (3) (2015), 385--398], where we also classified the filled groups of odd order. In this paper we classify filled dihedral groups, filled nilpotent groups and filled groups of order $2^np$ where $p$ is an odd prime. We use these results to determine all filled groups of order up to 2000.

math.CO↗

A revised Moore bound for mixed graphs

The degree-diameter problem seeks to find the maximum possible order of a graph with a given (maximum) degree and diameter. It is known that graphs attaining the maximum possible value (the Moore bound) are extremely rare, but much activity is focused on finding new examples of graphs or families of graph with orders approaching the bound as closely as possible. There has been recent interest in this problem as it applies to mixed graphs, in which we allow some of the edges to be undirected and some directed. A 2008 paper of Nguyen and Miller derived an upper bound on the possible number of vertices of such graphs. We show that for diameters larger than three, this bound can be reduced and we present a corrected Moore bound for mixed graphs, valid for all diameters and for all combinations of undirected and directed degrees.

math.CO↗

Diameter 2 Cayley Graphs of Dihedral Groups

We consider the degree-diameter problem for Cayley graphs of dihedral groups. We find upper and lower bounds on the maximum number of vertices of such a graph with diameter 2 and degree $d$. We completely determine the asymptotic behaviour of this class of graphs by showing that both limits are asymptotically $d^2/2$.

math.CO↗