On directed and undirected diameters of vertex-transitive graphs

Abstract

A directed diameter of a directed graph is the maximum possible distance between a pair of vertices, where paths must respect edge orientations, while undirected diameter is the diameter of the undirected graph obtained by symmetrizing the edges. In 2006 Babai proved that for a connected directed Cayley graph on $n$ vertices the directed diameter is bounded above by a polynomial in undirected diameter and $\log n$. Moreover, Babai conjectured that a similar bound holds for vertex-transitive graphs. We prove this conjecture of Babai, in fact, it follows from a more general bound for connected relations of homogeneous coherent configurations. The main novelty of the proof is a generalization of Ruzsa's triangle inequality from additive combinatorics to the setting of graphs.