In this paper, we study extremal values for the determinant of the weighted graph Laplacian under simple nondegeneracy conditions on the weights. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the determinant of the Laplacian to be bounded away from zero and for the existence of a minimizing set of weights. These conditions are given both in terms of properties of random spanning trees and in terms of a type of density on graphs. These results generalize and extend the work of [7].
In this paper, we compute asymptotics for the determinant of the combinatorial Laplacian on a sequence of $d$-dimensional orthotope square lattices as the number of vertices in each dimension grows at the same rate. It is related to the number of spanning trees by the well-known matrix tree theorem. Asymptotics for $2$ and $3$ component rooted spanning forests in these graphs are also derived. Moreover, we express the number of spanning trees in a $2$-dimensional square lattice in terms of the one in a $2$-dimensional discrete torus and also in the quartered Aztec diamond. As a consequence, we…
In this paper we consider the following problem: Over the class of all simple connected unicyclic graphs on $n$ vertices with girth $g$ ($n,g$ being fixed), which graph minimizes the Laplacian spectral radius? We prove that the graph $U_{n,g}$ (defined in Section 1) uniquely minimizes the Laplacian spectral radius for $n\geq 2g-1$ when $g$ is even and for $n\geq 3g-1$ when $g$ is odd.
We consider a combinatorial Laplace operator on a sequence of discrete graphs which approximates the m-dimensional torus when the discretization parameter tends to infinity. We establish a polyhomogeneous expansion of the resolvent trace for the family of discrete graphs, jointly in the resolvent and the discretization parameter. Based on a result about interchanging regularized limits and regularized integrals, we compare the regularized limit of the log-determinants of the combinatorial Laplacian on the sequence of discrete graphs with the logarithm of the zeta determinant for the Laplace Be…
The determinants of $\{\pm 1\}$-matrices are calculated by via the oriented hypergraphic Laplacian and summing over an incidence generalization of vertex cycle-covers. These cycle-covers are signed and partitioned into families based on their hyperedge containment. Every non-edge-monic family is shown to contribute a net value of $0$ to the Laplacian, while each edge-monic family is shown to sum to the absolute value of the determinant of the original incidence matrix. Simple symmetries are identified as well as their relationship to Hadamard's maximum determinant problem. Finally, the entries…
Hodge's formula represents the gravitational MHV amplitude as the determinant of a minor of a certain matrix. When expanded, this determinant becomes a sum over weighted trees, which is the form of the MHV formula first obtained by Bern, Dixon, Perelstein, Rozowsky and rediscovered by Nguyen, Spradlin, Volovich and Wen. The gravity MHV amplitude satisfies the Britto, Cachazo, Feng and Witten recursion relation. The main building block of the MHV amplitude, the so-called half-soft function, satisfies a different, Berends-Giele-type recursion relation. We show that all these facts are illustrati…
A mixed graph is obtained from an unoriented graph by orienting a subset of its edges. Yu, Liu, and Qu in 2017 have established the expression for the determinant of Hermitian (quasi-) Laplacian matrix of a mixed graph. Here we find general expressions for all minors of Hermitian (quasi-) Laplacian matrix of mixed graphs.
We prove an asymptotic formula for the determinant of the bundle Laplacian on discrete $d$-dimensional tori as the number of vertices tends to infinity. This determinant has a combinatorial interpretation in terms of cycle-rooted spanning forests. We also establish a relation (in the limit) between the spectral zeta function of a line bundle over a discrete torus, the spectral zeta function of the infinite graph $\mathbb{Z}^d$ and the Epstein-Hurwitz zeta function. The latter can be viewed as the spectral zeta function of the twisted continuous torus which is the limit of the sequence of discr…
An oriented hypergraph is an oriented incidence structure that generalizes and unifies graph and hypergraph theoretic results by examining its locally signed graphic substructure. In this paper we obtain a combinatorial characterization of the coefficients of the characteristic polynomials of oriented hypergraphic Laplacian and adjacency matrices via a signed hypergraphic generalization of basic figures of graphs. Additionally, we provide bounds on the determinant and permanent of the Laplacian matrix, characterize the oriented hypergraphs in which the upper bound is sharp, and demonstrate tha…
In this paper, I describe the weak limits of the measures associated to the eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on a Quantum graph for a generic metric in terms of the Gauss map of the determinant manifold. I describe also all the limits with minimal support (the "scars").
We prove a formula for a characteristic polynomial of an operator expressed as a polynomial of rank 1 operators. The formula uses a discrete analog of path integration and implies a generalization of the Forman-Kenyon's formula [4,6] for a determinant of the graph Laplacian (which, in its turn, implies the famous matrix-tree theorem by Kirchhoff) as well as its level 2 analog, where the summation is performed over triangulated nodal surfaces with boundary.
By a discrete torus we mean the Cayley graph associated to a finite product of finite cycle groups with generating set given by choosing a generator for each cyclic factor. In this article we study the spectral theory of the combinatorial Laplacian for sequences of discrete tori when the orders of the cyclic factors tend to infinity at comparable rates. First we show that the sequence of heat kernels corresponding to the degenerating family converges, after re-scaling, to the heat kernel on an associated real torus. We then establish an asymptotic expansion, in the degeneration parameter, of t…
For a simple signed graph $G$ with the adjacency matrix $A$ and net degree matrix $D^{\pm}$, the net Laplacian matrix is $L^{\pm}=D^{\pm}-A$. We introduce a new oriented incidence matrix $N^{\pm}$ which can keep track of the sign as well as the orientation of each edge of $G$. Also $L^{\pm}=N^{\pm}(N^{\pm})^T$. Using this decomposition, we find the numbers of positive and negative spanning trees of $G$ in terms of the principal minors of $L^{\pm}$ generalizing Matrix Tree Theorem for an unsigned graph. We present similar results for the signless net Laplacian matrix $Q^{\pm}=D^{\pm}+A$ along w…
Let X be a finite graph. Let E be the number of its edges and d be its degree. Denote by F_1(X) its first spectral density function which counts the number of eigenvalues less or equal to lambda^2 of the associated Laplace operator. We prove the estimate F_1(X)(lambda) - F_1(X)(0) le 2 cdot E cdot d cdot lambda for 0 le lambda < 1. We explain how this gives evidence for conjectures about approximating Fuglede-Kadison determinants and L^2-torsion.
A real symmetric matrix $A$ is said to be completely positive if it can be written as $BB^t$ for some (not necessarily square) nonnegative matrix $B$. A simple graph $G$ is called a completely positive graph if every doubly nonnegative matrix realization of $G$ is a completely positive matrix. Our aim in this manuscript is to compute the determinant and inverse (when it exists) of the distance matrix of a class of completely positive graphs. Similar to trees, we obtain a relation for the inverse of the distance matrix of a class of completely positive graphs involving the Laplacian matrix, a r…
A mixed graph $M_{G}$ is the graph obtained from an unoriented simple graph $G$ by giving directions to some edges of $G$, where $G$ is often called the underlying graph of $M_{G}$. In this paper, we introduce two classes of incidence matrices of the second kind of $M_{G}$, and discuss the determinants of these two matrices for rootless mixed trees and unicyclic mixed graphs. Applying these results, we characterize the explicit expressions of various minors for Hermitian (quasi-)Laplacian matrix of the second kind of $M_{G}$. Moreover, we give two sufficient conditions that the absolute values…
The magnetic Laplacian (also called the line bundle Laplacian) on a connected weighted graph is a self-adjoint operator wherein the real-valued adjacency weights are replaced by unit complex-valued weights $\{ω_{xy}\}_{xy\in E}$, satisfying the condition that $ω_{xy}=\overline{ω_{yx}}$ for every directed edge $xy$. When properly interpreted, these complex weights give rise to magnetic fluxes through cycles in the graph. In this paper we establish the spectrum of the magnetic Laplacian, as a set of real numbers with multiplicities, on the Sierpinski gasket graph ($SG$) where the magnetic fluxes…
If $G$ is a strongly connected finite directed graph, the set $\mathcal{T}G$ of rooted directed spanning trees of $G$ is naturally equipped with a structure of directed graph: there is a directed edge from any spanning tree to any other obtained by adding an outgoing edge at its root vertex and deleting the outgoing edge of the endpoint. Any Schrödinger operator on $G$, for example the Laplacian, can be lifted canonically to $\mathcal{T}G$. We show that the determinant of such a lifted Schrödinger operator admits a remarkable factorization into a product of determinants of the restrictions of …
Tutte's spring embedding theorem states that, for a three-connected planar graph, if the outer face of the graph is fixed as the complement of some convex region in the plane, and all other vertices are placed at the mass center of their neighbors, then this results in a unique embedding, and this embedding is planar. It also follows fairly quickly that this embedding minimizes the sum of squared edge lengths, conditional on the embedding of the outer face. However, it is not at all clear how to embed this outer face. We consider the minimization problem of embedding this outer face, up to som…
Kirchhoff's matrix tree theorem is a well-known result that gives a formula for the number of spanning trees in a finite, connected graph in terms of the graph Laplacian matrix. A closely related result is Wilson's algorithm for putting the uniform distribution on the set of spanning trees. We will show that when one follows Greg Lawler's strategy for proving Wilson's algorithm, Kirchhoff's theorem follows almost immediately after one applies some elementary linear algebra. We also show that the same ideas can be applied to other computations related to general Markov chains and processes on a…
