Odd extensions of transitive groups via symmetric graphs

Abstract

When dealing with symmetry properties of mathematical objects, one of the fundamental questions is to determine their full automorphism group. In this paper this question is considered in the context of even/odd permutations dichotomy. More precisely: when is it that existence of automorphisms acting as even permutations on the vertex set of a graph, called {\em even automorphisms}, forces existence of automorphisms that act as odd permutations, called {\em odd automorphisms}. As a first step towards resolving the above question, a complete information on existence of odd automorphisms in cubic symmetric graphs is given.