| \(\quad\)For a finite abelian group \(\Gamma\), a \(\Gamma\)-magic map on a graph \(G\) is a map \(f\colon V(G)\to\Gamma\) with constant open-neighborhood sums. It is generating if its labels generate \(\Gamma\), and affinely generating if their pairwise differences generate \(\Gamma\). Let \(G\) be regular and write
\(\Gamma\cong\bigoplus_{i=1}^{r}\mathbb{Z}/d_i\mathbb{Z},\quad d_1\mid\cdots\mid d_r,\quad B_{\Gamma}=\bigoplus_{i=1}^{r-1}\mathbb{Z}/d_i\mathbb{Z},\)
with \(B_{\Gamma}=\{0\}\) when \(r=1\). Let \(\overline A_m\) be the endomorphism induced by adjacency on \((\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z})^{V(G)}\) modulo constant vectors. We prove that \(G\) admits generating and affinely generating \(\Gamma\)-magic maps if and only if, respectively,
\(B_{\Gamma}\hookrightarrow\ker\overline A_{d_r}\qquad\text{and}\qquad\Gamma\hookrightarrow\ker\overline A_{d_r}.\)
When \(|V(G)|=|\Gamma|\), a bijective \(\Gamma\)-magic map, called a \(\Gamma\)-distance magic labeling, exists precisely when the latter embedding has an image that separates every pair of distinct vertices by a coordinate difference. If the integral reduced adjacency operator is nonsingular over \(\mathbb{Q}\), the first two criteria become subgroup conditions in its cokernel.
A graph of order \(n\) is distance magic if it admits a bijection from its vertex set to \(\{1,\ldots,n\}\) with constant open-neighborhood sums. Cichacz and Froncek conjectured that every such graph is \(\Gamma\)-distance magic for every abelian group \(\Gamma\) of order \(n\). We use these characterizations to disprove this conjecture by constructing a \(6\)-regular distance magic graph of order \(27\) with no affinely generating \((\mathbb{Z}/3\mathbb{Z})^3\)-magic map. For Cayley graphs on elementary abelian \(p\)-groups, the same characterizations yield a nonexistence result which, combined with a known sufficient condition, shows that a \(\Gamma\)-distance magic labeling exists over some abelian group \(\Gamma\) of the graph order if and only if the regularity is divisible by \(p\). |