Inequalities for the Number of Walks, the Spectral Radius, and the Energy of Graphs
Author(s):
Hanjo Täubig; Jeremias Weihmann
Abstract:
We unify and generalize several inequalities for the number~$w_k$ of
walks of length~$k$ in graphs. The new inequalities use an arbitrary
nonnegative weighting of the vertices. This allows an application of
the theorems to subsets of vertices, i.e., these inequalities consider
the number $w_k(S,S)$ of walks of length~$k$ that start at a vertex of
a given vertex subset~$S$ and that end within the same subset.
In particular, we show a weighted sandwich theorem for Hermitian
matrices which generalizes a theorem by Marcus and Newman and which
implies $w_{2a+c}(S,S) \cdot w_{2a+2b+c}(S,S) \leq w_{2a}(S,S) \cdot
w_{2(a+b+c)}(S,S)$, a unification and generalization of inequalities
by Lagarias et~al.\ and by Dress \& Gutman.
Further, we show a theorem for nonnegative symmetric matrices that
implies $w_{2\ell+p}(S,S)^k \leq w_{2\ell}(S,S)^{k-1}\cdot
w_{2\ell+pk}(S,S)$, which is a unification and generalization of
inequalities by Erd{\H{o}}s~\& Simonovits, by Dress~\& Gutman, and by
Ili{\'c}~\& Stevanovi{\'c}.
Both results can be translated into corresponding forms for matrix or
graph densities.
In the end, these results are used to generalize lower bounds for the
spectral radius and upper bounds for the energy of graphs.
Keywords:
inequalities, undirected graph, number of walks, hermitian matrix, nonnegative matrix, matrix powers, sum of elements, spectral radius, largest eigenvalue, graph energy