Edge-disjoint spanning trees and eigenvalues of regular graphs

Partially answering a question of Paul Seymour, we obtain a sufficient eigenvalue condition for the existence of $k$ edge-disjoint spanning trees in a regular graph, when $k\in \{2,3\}$. More precisely, we show that if the second largest eigenvalue of a $d$-regular graph $G$ is less than $d-\frac{2k-1}{d+1}$, then $G$ contains at least $k$ edge-disjoint spanning trees, when $k\in \{2,3\}$. We construct examples of graphs that show our bounds are essentially best possible. We conjecture that the above statement is true for any $k<d/2$.Comment: 4 figure

The spectrum and toughness of regular graphs

In 1995, Brouwer proved that the toughness of a connected $k$-regular graph $G$ is at least $k/\lambda-2$, where $\lambda$ is the maximum absolute value of the non-trivial eigenvalues of $G$. Brouwer conjectured that one can improve this lower bound to $k/\lambda-1$ and that many graphs (especially graphs attaining equality in the Hoffman ratio bound for the independence number) have toughness equal to $k/\lambda$. In this paper, we improve Brouwer's spectral bound when the toughness is small and we determine the exact value of the toughness for many strongly regular graphs attaining equality in the Hoffman ratio bound such as Lattice graphs, Triangular graphs, complements of Triangular graphs and complements of point-graphs of generalized quadrangles. For all these graphs with the exception of the Petersen graph, we confirm Brouwer's intuition by showing that the toughness equals $k/(-\lambda_{min})$, where $\lambda_{min}$ is the smallest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of the graph.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, accepted to Discrete Applied Mathematics, special issue dedicated to the "Applications of Graph Spectra in Computer Science" Conference, Centre de Recerca Matematica (CRM), Bellaterra, Barcelona, June 16-20, 201

Mixing Rates of Random Walks with Little Backtracking

Many regular graphs admit a natural partition of their edge set into cliques of the same order such that each vertex is contained in the same number of cliques. In this paper, we study the mixing rate of certain random walks on such graphs and we generalize previous results of Alon, Benjamini, Lubetzky and Sodin regarding the mixing rates of non-backtracking random walks on regular graphs.Comment: 31 pages; to appear in the CRM Proceedings Series, published by the American Mathematical Society as part of the Contemporary Mathematics Serie

On the Spectrum of Wenger Graphs

Let $q=p^e$, where $p$ is a prime and $e\geq 1$ is an integer. For $m\geq 1$, let $P$ and $L$ be two copies of the $(m+1)$-dimensional vector spaces over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. Consider the bipartite graph $W_m(q)$ with partite sets $P$ and $L$ defined as follows: a point $(p)=(p_1,p_2,\ldots,p_{m+1})\in P$ is adjacent to a line $[l]=[l_1,l_2,\ldots,l_{m+1}]\in L$ if and only if the following $m$ equalities hold: $l_{i+1} + p_{i+1}=l_{i}p_1$ for $i=1,\ldots, m$. We call the graphs $W_m(q)$ Wenger graphs. In this paper, we determine all distinct eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix of $W_m(q)$ and their multiplicities. We also survey results on Wenger graphs.Comment: 9 pages; accepted for publication to J. Combin. Theory, Series

A graph partition problem

Given a graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, for which $m$ is it possible to partition the edge set of the $m$-fold complete graph $mK_n$ into copies of $G$? We show that there is an integer $m_0$, which we call the \emph{partition modulus of $G$}, such that the set $M(G)$ of values of $m$ for which such a partition exists consists of all but finitely many multiples of $m_0$. Trivial divisibility conditions derived from $G$ give an integer $m_1$ which divides $m_0$; we call the quotient $m_0/m_1$ the \emph{partition index of $G$}. It seems that most graphs $G$ have partition index equal to $1$, but we give two infinite families of graphs for which this is not true. We also compute $M(G)$ for various graphs, and outline some connections between our problem and the existence of designs of various types

Eigenvalues and edge-connectivity of regular graphs

AbstractIn this paper, we show that if the second largest eigenvalue of a d-regular graph is less than d-2(k-1)d+1, then the graph is k-edge-connected. When k is 2 or 3, we prove stronger results. Let ρ(d) denote the largest root of x3-(d-3)x2-(3d-2)x-2=0. We show that if the second largest eigenvalue of a d-regular graph G is less than ρ(d), then G is 2-edge-connected and we prove that if the second largest eigenvalue of G is less than d-3+(d+3)2-162, then G is 3-edge-connected