Counterexamples to conjectures on the occupancy fraction of graphs

The occupancy fraction of a graph is a (normalized) measure on the size of independent sets under the hard-core model, depending on a variable (fugacity) $\lambda.$ We present a criterion for finding the graph with minimum occupancy fraction among graphs with a fixed order, and disprove five conjectures on the extremes of the occupancy fraction and (normalized) independence polynomial for certain graph classes of regular graphs with a given girth.