Canonization of a Random Circulant Graph by Counting Walks

It is well known that almost all graphs are canonizable by a simple combinatorial routine known as color refinement. With high probability, this method assigns a unique label to each vertex of a random input graph and, hence, it is applicable only to asymmetric graphs. The strength of combinatorial refinement techniques becomes a subtle issue if the input graphs are highly symmetric. We prove that the combination of color refinement with vertex individualization produces a canonical labeling for almost all circulant digraphs (Cayley digraphs of a cyclic group). To our best knowledge, this is the first application of combinatorial refinement in the realm of vertex-transitive graphs. Remarkably, we do not even need the full power of the color refinement algorithm. We show that the canonical label of a vertex v can be obtained just by counting walks of each length from v to an individualized vertex.