Bridging semisymmetric and half-arc-transitive actions on graphs (Q1864586)

The central topic of the paper are the semisymmetric graphs and the \(\frac{1}{2}\)-arc-transitive graphs. A graph is said to be \(\frac{1}{2}\)-arc-transitive if it is vertex-transitive, edge-transitive but not arc-transitive and a graph is said to be semisymmetric if it is a regular graph which is edge- but not vertex-transitive. The study of semisymmetric graphs has been initiated by \textit{J. Folkman} [J. Comb. Theory 3, 215-231 (1967; Zbl 0158.42501)] who gave a construction of several infinite families of such graphs. A generalization of Folkman's construction of semisymmetric graphs was given by the present authors [Eur. J. Comb. 22, 333-249 (2001; Zbl 0979.05056)]. They found a natural connection between graphs admitting \(\frac{1}{2}\)-arc-transitive group actions and certain graphs admitting semisymmetric group actions. The main purpose of the present article is to study this connection. A sufficient condition for the semisymmetry of the so-called generalized Folkman graphs arising from certain graphs admitting a \(\frac{1}{2}\)-arc-transitive group action is given in Section 2 of the paper (Theorem 2.1). In Section 3 the concepts of alter-sequence and alter-exponent for a general digraph are introduced and studied in great detail; their definitions are too technical to be produced here. These tools are then used in Section 4 to study the interplay of three classes of graphs: (1) cubic graphs admitting a one-regular group action, (2) the corresponding line graphs which admit a \(\frac{1}{2}\)-arc-transitive action of the same group, and (3) the associated generalized Folkman graphs. At the end in Section 5 an open problem is posed, suggesting an in-depth analysis of the structure of tetravalent \(\frac{1}{2}\)-arc-transitive graphs with alter-exponent 2.