This paper contributes to the regular covers of a complete bipartite graph minus a matching, denoted $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$, whose fiber-preserving automorphism group acts 2-arc-transitively. All such covers, when the covering transformation group $K$ is either cyclic or $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$ with $p$ a prime, have been determined in Xu and Du [‘2-arc-transitive cyclic covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$’, J. Algebraic Combin.39 (2014), 883–902] and Xu et al. [‘2-arc-transitive regular covers of $K_{n,n}-nK_{2}$ with the covering transformation group $\mathbb{Z}_{p}^{2}$’, Ars. Math. Contemp.10 (2016), 269–280]. Finally, this paper gives a classification of all such covers for $K\cong \mathbb{Z}_{p}^{3}$ with $p$ a prime.

A complete classification is given of pentavalent symmetric graphs of order $30p$, where $p\ge 5$ is a prime. It is proved that such a graph ${\Gamma }$ exists if and only if $p=13$ and, up to isomorphism, there is only one such graph. Furthermore, ${\Gamma }$ is isomorphic to $\mathcal{C}_{390}$, a coset graph of PSL(2, 25) with ${\sf Aut}\, {\Gamma }=\mbox{PSL(2, 25)}$, and ${\Gamma }$ is 2-regular. The classification involves a new 2-regular pentavalent graph construction with square-free order.

A graph $\Gamma $ is $G$-symmetric if $\Gamma $ admits $G$ as a group of automorphisms acting transitively on the set of vertices and the set of arcs of $\Gamma $, where an arc is an ordered pair of adjacent vertices. In the case when $G$ is imprimitive on $V(\Gamma )$, namely when $V(\Gamma )$ admits a nontrivial $G$-invariant partition ${\mathcal{B}}$, the quotient graph $\Gamma _{\mathcal{B}}$ of $\Gamma $ with respect to ${\mathcal{B}}$ is always $G$-symmetric and sometimes even $(G, 2)$-arc transitive. (A $G$-symmetric graph is $(G, 2)$-arc transitive if $G$ is transitive on the set of oriented paths of length two.) In this paper we obtain necessary conditions for $\Gamma _{{\mathcal{B}}}$ to be $(G, 2)$-arc transitive (regardless of whether $\Gamma $ is $(G, 2)$-arc transitive) in the case when $v-k$ is an odd prime $p$, where $v$ is the block size of ${\mathcal{B}}$ and $k$ is the number of vertices in a block having neighbours in a fixed adjacent block. These conditions are given in terms of $v, k$ and two other parameters with respect to $(\Gamma , {\mathcal{B}})$ together with a certain 2-point transitive block design induced by $(\Gamma , {\mathcal{B}})$. We prove further that if $p=3$ or $5$ then these necessary conditions are essentially sufficient for $\Gamma _{{\mathcal{B}}}$ to be $(G, 2)$-arc transitive.

We answer a recent question posed by Li et al. [‘Imprimitive symmetric graphs with cyclic blocks’, European J. Combin.31 (2010), 362–367] regarding a family of imprimitive symmetric graphs.

Let p be a prime. We say that a transitive action of a group L on a set Ω is p-sub-regular if there exist x,y∈Ω such that 〈Lx,Ly〉=L and LYx≅ℤp, where Y =yLx is the orbit of y under Lx. Our main result is that if Γ is a G-arc-transitive graph and the permutation group induced by the action of Gv on Γ(v) is p-sub-regular, then the order of a G-arc-stabilizer is equal to ps−1 where s≤7, s≠6, and moreover, if p=2, then s≤5. This generalizes a classical result of Tutte on cubic arc-transitive graphs as well as some more recent results. We also give a characterization of p-sub-regular actions in terms of arc-regular actions on digraphs and discuss some interesting examples of small degree.

A graph is one-regular if its automorphism group acts regularly on the set of its arcs. In this paper we show that there exists a one-regular cubic graph of order 2p or 2p2 where p is a prime if and only if 3 is a divisor of p – 1 and the graph has order greater than 25. All of those one-regular cubic graphs are Cayley graphs on dihedral groups and there is only one such graph for each fixed order. Surprisingly, it can be shown that there is no one-regular cubic graph of order 4p or 4p2.