English

Second largest maximal cliques in small Paley graphs of square order

Combinatorics 2024-10-08 v1

Abstract

There is a conjecture that the second largest maximal cliques in Paley graphs of square order P(q2)P(q^2) have size q+ϵ2\frac{q+\epsilon}{2}, where qϵ(mod4)q \equiv \epsilon \pmod 4, and split into two orbits under the full group of automorphisms whenever q25q \ge 25 (a symmetric description for these two orbits is known). However, some extra second largest maximal cliques (of this size) exist in P(q2)P(q^2) whenever q{9,11,13,17,19,23}q \in \{9,11,13,17,19,23\}. In this paper we analyse the algebraic and geometric structure of the extra cliques.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.04024,
  title  = {Second largest maximal cliques in small Paley graphs of square order},
  author = {Huye Chen and Sergey Goryainov and Cong Hu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.04024},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:09:33.025Z