Cages and cyclic connectivity

Abstract

A graph $G$ is cyclically $c$-edge-connected if there is no set of fewer than $c$ edges that disconnects $G$ into at least two cyclic components. We prove that if a $(k, g)$-cage $G$ has at most $2M(k, g) - g^2$ vertices, where $M(k, g)$ is the Moore bound, then $G$ is cyclically $(k - 2)g$-edge-connected, which equals the number of edges separating a $g$-cycle, and every cycle-separating $(k - 2)g$-edge-cut in $G$ separates a cycle of length $g$. In particular, this is true for unknown cages with $(k, g) \in \{(3, 13), (3, 14), (3, 15), (4, 9), (4, 10)$, $(4, 11),$ $(5, 7), (5, 9), (5, 10), (5, 11), (6, 7), (9, 7)\}$ and also the potential missing Moore graph with degree $57$ and diameter $2$. Keywords: cage, cyclic connectivity, girth, lower bound