Cycles Of Given Length In Oriented Graphs

Abstract

We show that for each \ell\geq 4 every sufficiently large oriented graph G with \delta^+(G), \delta^-(G) \geq \lfloor |G|/3 \rfloor +1 contains an \ell-cycle. This is best possible for all those \ell\geq 4 which are not divisible by 3. Surprisingly, for some other values of \ell, an \ell-cycle is forced by a much weaker minimum degree condition. We propose and discuss a conjecture regarding the precise minimum degree which forces an \ell-cycle (with \ell \geq 4 divisible by 3) in an oriented graph. We also give an application of our results to pancyclicity and consider \ell-cycles in general digraphs.