A note on cycles in cyclically $4$-edge-connected cubic planar graphs

Abstract

Let $H$ be obtained from a cyclically $4$-edge-connected cubic planar graph $Y$ other than $K_4$ by deleting two adjacent vertices. We provide a short proof that if $H$ has circumference at least $k$ for some even integer $k \ge 4$, then $H$ contains a cycle of length between $k$ and $3k/2$. As a consequence, we show that the line graph $G$ of $Y$ contains a cycle of length $l$ avoiding any prescribed vertex of $G$, for every $l \in \{3\} \cup \{5, \dots, |V(G)| - 1\}$. The proofs integrate Euler's formula and the Three Edge Lemma, established by Thomas and Yu, and independently by Sanders, in a novel way. This work was partially motivated by conjectures of Bondy and Malkevitch.