Urschel Nodal Domains via Perturbation Theory

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Friedman, Joel, Ling, Tong, Saha, Soumyajit
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Friedman, Joel
Ling, Tong
Saha, Soumyajit
author_facet Friedman, Joel
Ling, Tong
Saha, Soumyajit
contents We prove several types of Courant nodal domain theorems for generalized Laplacians on graphs, based on an invariant introduced by Urschel, which we call the "Urschel number", denoted ${\rm UN}({\bf f})$, of an eigenvector ${\bf f}$. We refine Urschel's invariant, and use perturbation techniques to obtain some new results. First, we show the existence of mutually orthogonal eigenvectors, such that if the $k$-th eigenvalue has multiplicity $m$, then for $0\le j\le m-1$, ${\rm UN}({\bf f}_{k+j})\le k+\min(j,(m-1)-j)$. Second, for a simple $k$-th eigenvalue, we classify the zeroes of ${\bf f}_k$ as either "shallow or "deep"; we obtain a number of results that say, roughly speaking, the more shallow vertices ${\bf f}_k$ has, the more control we have over our new invariants based on Urschel's. Our new invariants of an eigenvector, ${\bf f}_k$, are a sequence of integers whose minimum value is ${\rm UN}({\bf f}_k)$ and whose maximum, denoted ${\rm UN}_{\max{}}({\bf f}_k)$, is the maximum number of nodal domains of any possible positive/negative signing or "charge" of the zeroes of ${\bf f}_k$. An example of our second type of result is that if ${\bf f}_k$ has no deep vertices, then ${\rm UN}_{\max{}}({\bf f}_k)\le k$. We provide a number of examples to illustrate our main results, and how they differ from the situation in analysis. We also describe a minor improvement of the Gladwell-Zhu theorem for an orthonormal eigenbasis in the presence of eigenvalues of sufficient multiplicity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_11241
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Urschel Nodal Domains via Perturbation Theory
Friedman, Joel
Ling, Tong
Saha, Soumyajit
Combinatorics
Primary 05C50
We prove several types of Courant nodal domain theorems for generalized Laplacians on graphs, based on an invariant introduced by Urschel, which we call the "Urschel number", denoted ${\rm UN}({\bf f})$, of an eigenvector ${\bf f}$. We refine Urschel's invariant, and use perturbation techniques to obtain some new results. First, we show the existence of mutually orthogonal eigenvectors, such that if the $k$-th eigenvalue has multiplicity $m$, then for $0\le j\le m-1$, ${\rm UN}({\bf f}_{k+j})\le k+\min(j,(m-1)-j)$. Second, for a simple $k$-th eigenvalue, we classify the zeroes of ${\bf f}_k$ as either "shallow or "deep"; we obtain a number of results that say, roughly speaking, the more shallow vertices ${\bf f}_k$ has, the more control we have over our new invariants based on Urschel's. Our new invariants of an eigenvector, ${\bf f}_k$, are a sequence of integers whose minimum value is ${\rm UN}({\bf f}_k)$ and whose maximum, denoted ${\rm UN}_{\max{}}({\bf f}_k)$, is the maximum number of nodal domains of any possible positive/negative signing or "charge" of the zeroes of ${\bf f}_k$. An example of our second type of result is that if ${\bf f}_k$ has no deep vertices, then ${\rm UN}_{\max{}}({\bf f}_k)\le k$. We provide a number of examples to illustrate our main results, and how they differ from the situation in analysis. We also describe a minor improvement of the Gladwell-Zhu theorem for an orthonormal eigenbasis in the presence of eigenvalues of sufficient multiplicity.
title Urschel Nodal Domains via Perturbation Theory
topic Combinatorics
Primary 05C50
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11241