Bipartite Distance-Regular Graphs of Diameter Four

Using a method by Godsil and Roy, bipartite distance-regular graphs of diameter four can be used to construct $\{0,\alpha\}$-sets, a generalization of the widely applied equiangular sets and mutually unbiased bases. In this thesis, we study the properties of these graphs. There are three main themes of the thesis. The first is the connection between bipartite distance-regular graphs of diameter four and their halved graphs, which are necessarily strongly regular. We derive formulae relating the parameters of a graph of diameter four to those of its halved graphs, and use these formulae to derive a necessary condition for the point graph of a partial geometry to be a halved graph. Using this necessary condition, we prove that several important families of strongly regular graphs cannot be halved graphs. The second theme is the algebraic properties of the graphs. We study Krein parameters as the first part of this theme. We show that bipartite-distance regular graphs of diameter four have one ``special" Krein parameter, denoted by \krein. We show that the antipodal bipartite distance-regular graphs of diameter four with \krein=0 are precisely the Hadamard graphs. In general, we show that a bipartite distance-regular graph of diameter four satisfies \krein=0 if and only if it satisfies the so-called $Q$-polynomial property. In relation to halved graphs, we derive simple formulae for computing the Krein parameters of a halved graph in terms of those of the bipartite graph. As the second part of the algebraic theme, we study Terwilliger algebras. We describe all the irreducible modules of the complex space under the Terwilliger algebra of a bipartite distance-regular graph of diameter four, and prove that no irreducible module can contain two linearly independent eigenvectors of the graph with the same eigenvalue. Finally, we study constructions and bounds of $\{0,\alpha\}$-sets as the third theme. We present some distance-regular graphs that provide new constructions of $\{0,\alpha\}$-sets. We prove bounds for the sizes of $\{0,\alpha\}$-sets of flat vectors, and characterize all the distance-regular graphs that yield $\{0,\alpha\}$-sets meeting the bounds at equality. We also study bipartite covers of linear Cayley graphs, and present a geometric condition and a coding theoretic condition for such a cover to produce $\{0,\alpha\}$-sets. Using simple operations on graphs, we show how new $\{0,\alpha\}$-sets can be constructed from old ones

Distance-regular graphs

This is a survey of distance-regular graphs. We present an introduction to distance-regular graphs for the reader who is unfamiliar with the subject, and then give an overview of some developments in the area of distance-regular graphs since the monograph 'BCN' [Brouwer, A.E., Cohen, A.M., Neumaier, A., Distance-Regular Graphs, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1989] was written.Comment: 156 page

Hyperbolic intersection graphs and (quasi)-polynomial time

We study unit ball graphs (and, more generally, so-called noisy uniform ball graphs) in $d$-dimensional hyperbolic space, which we denote by $\mathbb{H}^d$. Using a new separator theorem, we show that unit ball graphs in $\mathbb{H}^d$ enjoy similar properties as their Euclidean counterparts, but in one dimension lower: many standard graph problems, such as Independent Set, Dominating Set, Steiner Tree, and Hamiltonian Cycle can be solved in $2^{O(n^{1-1/(d-1)})}$ time for any fixed $d\geq 3$, while the same problems need $2^{O(n^{1-1/d})}$ time in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We also show that these algorithms in $\mathbb{H}^d$ are optimal up to constant factors in the exponent under ETH. This drop in dimension has the largest impact in $\mathbb{H}^2$, where we introduce a new technique to bound the treewidth of noisy uniform disk graphs. The bounds yield quasi-polynomial ($n^{O(\log n)}$) algorithms for all of the studied problems, while in the case of Hamiltonian Cycle and $3$-Coloring we even get polynomial time algorithms. Furthermore, if the underlying noisy disks in $\mathbb{H}^2$ have constant maximum degree, then all studied problems can be solved in polynomial time. This contrasts with the fact that these problems require $2^{\Omega(\sqrt{n})}$ time under ETH in constant maximum degree Euclidean unit disk graphs. Finally, we complement our quasi-polynomial algorithm for Independent Set in noisy uniform disk graphs with a matching $n^{\Omega(\log n)}$ lower bound under ETH. This shows that the hyperbolic plane is a potential source of NP-intermediate problems.Comment: Short version appears in SODA 202

Thick hyperbolic 3-manifolds with bounded rank

We construct a geometric decomposition for the convex core of a thick hyperbolic 3-manifold M with bounded rank. Corollaries include upper bounds in terms of rank and injectivity radius on the Heegaard genus of M and on the radius of any embedded ball in the convex core of M.Comment: 170 pages, 17 figure