A new conjecture on the inertia of graphs

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Akbari, Saieed, Elphick, Clive, Kumar, Hitesh, Pragada, Shivaramakrishna, Tang, Quanyu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915689230499840
author Akbari, Saieed
Elphick, Clive
Kumar, Hitesh
Pragada, Shivaramakrishna
Tang, Quanyu
author_facet Akbari, Saieed
Elphick, Clive
Kumar, Hitesh
Pragada, Shivaramakrishna
Tang, Quanyu
contents Let $G$ be a graph with adjacency matrix $A(G)$. We conjecture that \[2n^+(G) \le n^-(G)(n^-(G) + 1),\] where $n^+(G)$ and $n^-(G)$ denote the number of positive and negative eigenvalues of $A(G)$, respectively. This conjecture generalizes to all graphs the well-known absolute bound for strongly regular graphs. The conjecture also relates to a question posed by Torgašev. We prove the conjecture for special graph families, including line graphs and planar graphs, and provide examples where the conjecture is exact. We also conjecture that for any connected graph $G$, its line graph $L(G)$ satisfies $n^+(L(G)) \le n^-(L(G)) + 1$, and obtain partial results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_01163
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A new conjecture on the inertia of graphs
Akbari, Saieed
Elphick, Clive
Kumar, Hitesh
Pragada, Shivaramakrishna
Tang, Quanyu
Combinatorics
05C50, 05C76, 05E30
Let $G$ be a graph with adjacency matrix $A(G)$. We conjecture that \[2n^+(G) \le n^-(G)(n^-(G) + 1),\] where $n^+(G)$ and $n^-(G)$ denote the number of positive and negative eigenvalues of $A(G)$, respectively. This conjecture generalizes to all graphs the well-known absolute bound for strongly regular graphs. The conjecture also relates to a question posed by Torgašev. We prove the conjecture for special graph families, including line graphs and planar graphs, and provide examples where the conjecture is exact. We also conjecture that for any connected graph $G$, its line graph $L(G)$ satisfies $n^+(L(G)) \le n^-(L(G)) + 1$, and obtain partial results.
title A new conjecture on the inertia of graphs
topic Combinatorics
05C50, 05C76, 05E30
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01163