On two cycles of consecutive even lengths

Abstract

Bondy and Vince showed that every graph with minimum degree at least three contains two cycles of lengths differing by one or two. We prove the following average degree counterpart that every $n$-vertex graph $G$ with at least $\frac{5}{2}\left(n-1\right)$ edges, unless $4|\left(n-1\right)$ and every block of $G$ is a clique $K_5$, contains two cycles of consecutive even lengths. Our proof is mainly based on structural analysis, and a crucial step which may be of independent interest shows that the same conclusion holds for every 3-connected graph with at least six vertices. This solves a special case of a conjecture of Verstraëte. The quantitative bound is tight and also provides the optimal extremal number for cycles of length two modulo four.