English

Edge-connectivity matrices and their spectra

Combinatorics 2021-02-10 v1

Abstract

The edge-connectivity matrix of a weighted graph is the matrix whose off-diagonal vv-ww entry is the weight of a minimum edge cut separating vertices vv and ww. Its computation is a classical topic of combinatorial optimization since at least the seminal work of Gomory and Hu. In this article, we investigate spectral properties of these matrices. In particular, we provide tight bounds on the smallest eigenvalue and the energy. Moreover, we study the eigenvector structure and show in which cases eigenvectors can be easily obtained from matrix entries. These results in turn rely on a new characterization of those nonnegative matrices that can actually occur as edge-connectivity matrices.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.04541,
  title  = {Edge-connectivity matrices and their spectra},
  author = {Tobias Hofmann and Uwe Schwerdtfeger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.04541},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:57:41.103Z