On the expansion rate of Margulis expanders. (Q2490842)

We determine exactly the expansion rate of an infinite 4-regular expander graph which is a variant of an expander due to \textit{G. A. Margulis} [Probl. Peredači Inform. 9, No.~4, 71--80 (1973; Zbl 0312.22011)]. The vertex set of this graph consists of all points in the plane. The point \((x,y)\) is adjacent to the points \(S(x,y),S^{-1}(x,y),T(x,y),T^{-1}(x,y)\) where \(S(x,y)=(x,x+y)\) and \(T(x,y)=(x+y,y)\). We show that the expansion rate of this 4-regular graph is 2. The main technical result asserts that for any compact planar set \(A\) of finite positive measure, \[ \frac{|S(A)\cup S^{-1}(A)\cup T(A)\cup T^{-1}(A)\cup A|}{|A|}\geq 2, \] where \(|B|\) is the Lebesgue measure of \(B\). The proof is completely elementary and is based on symmetrization -- a classical method in the area of isoperimetric problems. We also use symmetrization to prove a similar result for a directed version of the same graph.