Separating rank 3 graphs

Abstract

We classify, up to some notoriously hard cases, the rank 3 graphs which fail to meet either the Delsarte or the Hoffman bound. As a consequence, we resolve the question of separation for the corresponding rank 3 primitive groups and give new examples of synchronising, but not $\mathbb{Q}\mathrm{I}$, groups of affine type.

Added acknowledgements and noted the third author's change of institution