Hamiltonian decompositions of 4-regular Cayley graphs of infinite abelian groups

TL;DR

This paper investigates Hamiltonian decompositions of 4-regular Cayley graphs of infinite abelian groups, establishing conditions under which they can be decomposed into spanning double-rays or Hamiltonian circles, extending finite graph results.

Contribution

It characterizes when infinite 4-regular Cayley graphs of abelian groups can be decomposed into Hamiltonian structures, generalizing finite graph conjectures to infinite settings.

Findings

Every 4-regular Cayley graph with all finite cuts even can be decomposed into spanning double-rays.

Characterization of when such graphs admit decompositions into Hamiltonian circles.

Identification of conditions allowing decompositions into Hamiltonian circles and double-rays.

Abstract

A well-known conjecture of Alspach says that every $2k$-regular Cayley graph of an abelian group can be decomposed into Hamiltonian cycles. We consider an analogous question for infinite abelian groups. In this setting one natural analogue of a Hamiltonian cycle is a spanning double-ray. However, a naive generalisation of Alspach's conjecture fails to hold in this setting due to the existence of $2k$-regular Cayley graphs with finite cuts $F$ where $|F|$ and $k$ differ in parity, which necessarily preclude the existence of a decomposition into spanning double-rays. We show that every $4$-regular Cayley graph of an infinite abelian group all of whose finite cuts are even can be decomposed into spanning double-rays, and so characterise when such decompositions exist. We also characterise when such graphs can be decomposed either into Hamiltonian circles, a more topological generalisation of a Hamiltonian cycle in infinite graphs, or into a Hamiltonian circle and a spanning double-ray.