English

Classification of tetravalent $2$-transitive non-normal Cayley graphs of finite simple groups

Combinatorics 2021-02-15 v2

Abstract

A graph Γ\Gamma is called (G,s)(G, s)-arc-transitive if GAut(Γ)G \le \mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma) is transitive on the set of vertices of Γ\Gamma and the set of ss-arcs of Γ\Gamma, where for an integer s1s \ge 1 an ss-arc of Γ\Gamma is a sequence of s+1s+1 vertices (v0,v1,,vs)(v_0,v_1,\ldots,v_s) of Γ\Gamma such that vi1v_{i-1} and viv_i are adjacent for 1is1 \le i \le s and vi1vi+1v_{i-1}\ne v_{i+1} for 1is11 \le i \le s-1. Γ\Gamma is called 2-transitive if it is (Aut(Γ),2)(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma), 2)-arc-transitive but not (Aut(Γ),3)(\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma), 3)-arc-transitive. A Cayley graph Γ\Gamma of a group GG is called normal if GG is normal in Aut(Γ)\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma) and non-normal otherwise. It was proved by X. G. Fang, C. H. Li and M. Y. Xu that if Γ\Gamma is a tetravalent 2-transitive Cayley graph of a finite simple group GG, then either Γ\Gamma is normal or GG is one of the groups PSL2(11)\mathrm{PSL}_2(11), M11M_{11}, M23M_{23} and A11A_{11}. However, it was unknown whether Γ\Gamma is normal when GG is one of these four groups. In the present paper we answer this question by proving that among these four groups only M11M_{11} produces connected tetravalent 2-transitive non-normal Cayley graphs. We prove further that there are exactly two such graphs which are non-isomorphic and both 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.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1611.06308,
  title  = {Classification of tetravalent $2$-transitive non-normal Cayley graphs of finite simple groups},
  author = {Xin Gui Fang and Jie Wang and Sanming Zhou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.06308},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Final version published in Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society