A study on $T$-equivalent graphs

Abstract

In his article [J. Comb. Theory Ser. B 16 (1974), 168-174], Tutte called two graphs $T$-equivalent (i.e., codichromatic) if they have the same Tutte polynomial and showed that graphs $G$ and $G^{\prime }$ are $T$-equivalent if $G^{\prime }$ is obtained from $G$ by flipping a rotor (i.e., replacing it by its mirror) of order at most $5$, where a rotor of order $k$ in $G$ is an induced subgraph $R$ having an automorphism $\ddot{I}ˆ$ with a vertex orbit $\{\ddot{I}{ˆ}^i(u):i\ge 0\}$ of size $k$ such that every vertex of $R$ is only adjacent to vertices in $R$ unless it is in this vertex orbit. In this article, we first show the above result due to Tutte can be extended to a rotor $R$ of order $k\ge 6$ if the subgraph of $G$ induced by all those edges of $G$ which are not in $R$ satisfies certain conditions. Also, we provide a new method for generating infinitely many non-isomorphic $T$-equivalent pairs of graphs.

15 page, 8 figures