Regular graphs and stability

Abstract

AbstractWe show that a graph G is semi-stable at vertex v if and only if the set of vertices of G adjacent to v is fixed by the automorphism group of Gv, the subgraph of G obtained by deleting v and its incident edges. This result leads to a neat proof that regular graphs are semi-stable at each vertex. We then investigate stable regular graphs, concentrating mainly on stable vertex-transitive graphs. We conjecture that if G is a non-trivial vertex-transitive graph, then G is stable if and only if γ(G) contains a transposition, offering some evidence for its truth.