Longest Induced Cycles on Cayley Graphs

Abstract

In this paper we study the length of the longest induced cycle in the unitary Cayley graph $X_n = Cay(\mathbb Z_n; U_n)$, where $U_n$ is the group of units in $\mathbb Z_n$. Using residues modulo the primes dividing $n$, we introduce a representation of the vertices that reduces the problem to a purely combinatorial question of comparing strings of symbols. This representation allows us to prove that the multiplicity of each prime dividing $n$, and even the value of each prime (if sufficiently large) has no effect on the length of the longest induced cycle in $X_n$. We also see that if $n$ has $r$ distinct prime divisors, $X_n$ always contains an induced cycle of length $2^r+2$, improving the $r \ln r$ bound of Berrezbeitia and Giudici. Moreover, we extend our results for $X_n$ to conjunctions of complete $k_i$-partite graphs, where $k_i$ need not be finite, and also to unitary Cayley graphs on any quotient of a Dedekind domain.