Girths of bipartite sextet graphs (Q1058529)

\textit{N. L. Biggs} and \textit{M. J. Hoare} [ibid. 3, 153-165 (1983; Zbl 0522.05030)] constructed an infinite family of bipartite cubic graphs called the sextet graphs, and conjectured that their girth tends to infinity with their order. A stronger result is proved in this interesting paper. The girth g and the order n of these graphs satisfy \(\log_ 2n<(3/4)g+3/2\). This bound is better than the bound of \textit{W. Imrich} [ibid. 4, 53-59 (1984; Zbl 0535.05033)], who used the methods of \textit{G. A. Margulis} [ibid. 2, 71-78 (1982; Zbl 0492.05044)] to show that the girth g and the order n of certain Cayley graphs satisfy \(\log_ 2n<1.04g+c\). In fact, it even improves the non-constructive bound \(\log_ 2n<g-1\) of Erdős and Sachs (cf. \textit{B. Bollobás} [Extremal Graph Theory (1978; Zbl 0419.05031)]).