We derive bounds on the size of an independent set based on eigenvalues. This generalizes a result due to Delsarte and Hoffman. We use this to obtain new bounds on the independence number of the Erdős-Rényi graphs. We investigate further properties of our bounds, and show how our results on the Erdős-Rényi graphs can be extended to other polarity graphs.
This paper consists of a few results, discovered and proved during the 2012-2013 research group at Eastern Oregon University. Inertia tables are a visual representation of the possible inertias of a given graph. The inertia of a graph counts the number of real positive and negative eigenvalues of its corresponding adjacency matrix. The problem of studying inertia tables is directly related to the inverse eigenvalue problem and can be used as a tool for the minimum rank problem. This paper describes the inverse eigenvalue problem, and tools used. We describe a number of new general formulas for…
Let $G$ be a connected graph of order $n$ with domination number $γ(G)$. Wang, Yan, Fang, Geng and Tian [Linear Algebra Appl. 607 (2020), 307-318] showed that for any Laplacian eigenvalue $λ$ of $G$ with multiplicity $m_G(λ)$, it holds that $γ(G)\leq n-m_G(λ)$. Using techniques from the theory of star sets, in this work we prove that the same bound holds when $λ$ is an arbitrary adjacency eigenvalue of a non-regular graph, and we characterize the cases of equality. Moreover, we show a result that gives a relationship between start sets and the $p$-domination number, and we apply it to extend t…
Following recent work by Kollár and Sarnak, we study gaps in the spectra of large connected cubic and quartic graphs with minimum spectral gap. We focus on two sequences of graphs, denoted $Δ_n$ and $Γ_n$ which are more `symmetric' compared to the other graphs in these two families, respectively. We prove that $(1,\sqrt{5}]$ is a gap interval for $Δ_n$, and $[(-1+\sqrt{17})/2,3]$ is a gap interval for $Γ_n$. We conjecture that these two are indeed maximal gap intervals. As a by-product, we show that the eigenvalues of $Δ_n$ lying in the interval $[-3,-\sqrt{5}]$ (in particular, its minimum eig…
Let $T$ be a tree with a given adjacency eigenvalue $λ$. In this paper, by using the $λ$-minimal trees, we determine the structure of trees with a given multiplicity of the eigenvalue $λ$. Furthermore, we consider the relationship between the structure of trees and the eigensystem of a given Laplacian eigenvalue.
We classify the distance-regular Cayley graphs with least eigenvalue $-2$ and diameter at most three. Besides sporadic examples, these comprise of the lattice graphs, certain triangular graphs, and line graphs of incidence graphs of certain projective planes. In addition, we classify the possible connection sets for the lattice graphs and obtain some results on the structure of distance-regular Cayley line graphs of incidence graphs of generalized polygons.
Let $X$ be $k$-regular graph on $v$ vertices and let $τ$ denote the least eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix $A(X)$. If $α(X)$ denotes the maximum size of an independent set in $X$, we have the following well known bound: \[ α(X) \le\frac{v}{1-\frac{k}τ}. \] It is less well known that if equality holds here and $S$ is a maximum independent set in $X$ with characteristic vector $x$, then the vector \[ x-\frac{|S|}{v}\one \] is an eigenvector for $A(X)$ with eigenvalue $τ$. In this paper we show how this can be used to characterise the maximal independent sets in certain classes of graphs. As a …
Graph eigenvalues are examples of totally real algebraic integers, i.e. roots of real-rooted monic polynomials with integer coefficients. Conversely, the fact that every totally real algebraic integer occurs as an eigenvalue of some finite graph is a deep result, conjectured forty years ago by Hoffman, and proved seventeen years later by Estes. This short paper provides an independent and elementary proof of a stronger statement, namely that the graph may actually be chosen to be a tree. As a by-product, our result implies that the atoms of the limiting spectrum of $n\times n$ symmetric matric…
We consider numbers and sizes of independent sets in graphs with minimum degree at least $d$, when the number $n$ of vertices is large. In particular we investigate which of these graphs yield the maximum numbers of independent sets of different sizes, and which yield the largest random independent sets. We establish a strengthened form of a conjecture of Galvin concerning the first of these topics.
Zero forcing is a combinatorial game played on a graph with a goal of turning all of the vertices of the graph black while having to use as few "unforced" moves as possible. This leads to a parameter known as the zero forcing number which can be used to give an upper bound for the maximum nullity of a matrix associated with the graph. We introduce a new variation on the zero forcing game which can be used to give an upper bound for the maximum nullity of a matrix associated with a graph that has $q$ negative eigenvalues. This gives some limits to the number of positive eigenvalues that such a …
We introduce the concept of the primitivity of independent set in vertex-transitive graphs, and investigate the relationship between the primitivity and the structure of maximum independent sets in direct products of vertex-transitive graphs. As a consequence of our main results, we positively solve an open problem related to the structure of independent sets in powers of vertex-transitive graphs.
We study properties of 3-restricted min-wise independent sets of permutations and prove that the class of these sets is isomorphic to the class of subsets of vertices of multi-dimentional hypercube of certain size with certain pair-wise distances fixed.
We connect two classical results in extremal graph theory concerning the number of maximal independent sets. The maximum number mis$(n)$ of maximal independent sets in an $n$-vertex graph was determined by Moon and Moser. The maximum number mis$_\bigtriangleup(n)$ of maximal independent sets in an $n$-vertex triangle-free graph was determined by Hujter and Tuza. We determine the maximum number mis$_t(n)$ of maximal independent sets in an $n$-vertex graph containing no induced triangle matching of size $t+1$. We also reprove a stability result of Kahn and Park on the maximum number mis$_{\bigtr…
We obtain sharp lower and upper bounds for the number of maximal (under inclusion) independent sets in trees with fixed number of vertices and diameter. All extremal trees are described up to isomorphism.
For a fixed graph G, a maximal independent set is an independent set that is not a proper subset of any other independent set. P. Erdös, and independently, J. W. Moon and L. Moser, and R. E. Miller and D. E. Muller, determined the maximum number of maximal independent sets in a graph on n vertices, as well as the extremal graphs. In this paper we maximize the number of maximal independent sets of a fixed size for all graphs of order n and determine the extremal graphs. Our result generalizes the classical result.
For a given complex square matrix $A$ with constant row sum, we establish two new eigenvalue inclusion sets. Using these bounds, first we derive bounds for the second largest and smallest eigenvalues of adjacency matrices of $k$-regular graphs. Then, we establish some bounds for the second largest and the smallest eigenvalues of the normalized adjacency matrices of graphs and the second smallest eigenvalue and the largest eigenvalue of the Laplacian matrices of graphs. Sharpness of these bounds are verified by examples.
We study the eigenvalues of a Laplace-Beltrami operator defined on the set of the symmetric polynomials, where the eigenvalues are expressed in terms of partitions of integers. By assigning partitions with the restricted uniform measure, the restricted Jack measure, the uniform measure or the Plancherel measure, we prove that the global distribution of the eigenvalues is asymptotically a new distribution $μ$, the Gamma distribution, the Gumbel distribution and the Tracy-Widom distribution, respectively. An explicit representation of $μ$ is obtained by a function of independent random variables…
Let $S_n$ denote the symmetric group on $n$ elements, and $Σ\subseteq S_{n}$ a symmetric subset of permutations. Aldous' spectral gap conjecture, proved by Caputo, Liggett and Richthammer [arXiv:0906.1238], states that if $Σ$ is a set of transpositions, then the second eigenvalue of the Cayley graph $\mathrm{Cay}\left(S_{n},Σ\right)$ is identical to the second eigenvalue of the Schreier graph on $n$ vertices depicting the action of $S_{n}$ on $\left\{ 1,\ldots,n\right\}$. Inspired by this seminal result, we study similar questions for other types of sets in $S_{n}$. Specifically, we consider n…
In this paper, we establish the relation between classic invariants of graphs and their integer Laplacian eigenvalues, focusing on a subclass of chordal graphs, the strictly chordal graphs, and pointing out how their computation can be efficiently implemented. Firstly we review results concerning general graphs showing that the number of universal vertices and the degree of false and true twins provide integer Laplacian eigenvalues and their multiplicities. Afterwards, we prove that many integer Laplacian eigenvalues of a strictly chordal graph are directly related to particular simplicial ver…
In this paper independent sets of closure operations are introduced. We characterize minimal keys and antikeys of closure operations in terms of independent sets. We establish an expression on the connection between minimal keys and antikeys of closure operations based on independent sets. We construct two combinatorial algorithms for finding all minimal keys and all antikeys of a given closure operation based on independent sets. We estimate the time complexity of these algorithms. Finally, we give an NP-complete problem concerning nonkeys of closure operations.
An independent set A is maximal if it is not a proper subset of an independent set, while A is maximum if it has a maximum size. The problem of whether a graph has a pair of disjoint maximal independent sets was introduced by C. Berge in early 70's. The class of graphs for which every induced subgraph admits two disjoint maximal independent sets was characterized in (Shaudt, 2015). It is known that deciding whether a graph has two disjoint maximal independent sets is a NP-complete problem (Henning et al., 2009). In this paper, we are focused on finding conditions ensuring the existence of two …
Miller and Muller (1960) and independently Moon and Moser (1965) determined the maximum number of maximal independent sets in an $n$-vertex graph. We give a new and simple proof of this result.
Let FI denote the category whose objects are the sets $[n] = \{1,\ldots, n\}$, and whose morphisms are injections. We study functors from the category FI into the category of sets. We write $\mathfrak{S}_n$ for the symmetric group on $[n]$. Our first main result is that, if the functor $[n] \mapsto X_n$ is "finitely generated" there there is a finite sequence of integers $m_i$ and a finite sequence of subgroups $H_i$ of $\mathfrak{S}_{m_i}$ such that, for $n$ sufficiently large, $X_n \cong \bigsqcup_i \mathfrak{S}_n/(H_i \times \mathfrak{S}_{n-m_i})$ as a set with $\mathfrak{S}_n$ action. Our …
We revisit Sapozhenko's classic proof on the asymptotics of the number of independent sets in the discrete hypercube $\{0,1\}^d$ and Galvin's follow-up work on weighted independent sets. We combine Sapozhenko's graph container methods with the cluster expansion and abstract polymer models, two tools from statistical physics, to obtain considerably sharper asymptotics and detailed probabilistic information about the typical structure of (weighted) independent sets in the hypercube. These results refine those of Korshunov and Sapozhenko and Galvin, and answer several questions of Galvin.
The maximum independent sets in the Doob graphs D(m,n) are analogs of the distance-2 MDS codes in Hamming graphs and of the latin hypercubes. We prove the characterization of these sets stating that every such set is semilinear or reducible. As related objects, we study vertex sets with maximum cut (edge boundary) in D(m,n) and prove some facts on their structure. We show that the considered two classes (the maximum independent sets and the maximum-cut sets) can be defined as classes of completely regular sets with specified 2-by-2 quotient matrices. It is notable that for a set from the consi…