Generation of Cycle Permutation Graphs and Permutation Snarks

Abstract

We present an algorithm for the efficient generation of all pairwise non-isomorphic cycle permutation graphs, i.e. cubic graphs with a $2$-factor consisting of two chordless cycles, non-hamiltonian cycle permutation graphs and permutation snarks, i.e. cycle permutation graphs that do not admit a $3$-edge-colouring. This allows us to generate all cycle permutation graphs up to order $34$ and all permutation snarks up to order $46$, improving upon previous computational results by Brinkmann et al. Moreover, we give several improved lower bounds for interesting permutation snarks, such as for a smallest permutation snark of order $6 \bmod 8$ or a smallest permutation snark of girth at least $6$ and give more evidence in support of a conjecture of Goddyn. These computational results also allow us to complete a characterisation of the orders for which non-hamiltonian cycle permutation graphs exist, answering an open question by Klee from 1972, and yield many more counterexamples to conjectures by Jackson and Zhang.