English

Impediments to diffusion in quantum graphs: geometry-based upper bounds on the spectral gap

Spectral Theory 2023-04-14 v3

Abstract

We derive several upper bounds on the spectral gap of the Laplacian with standard or Dirichlet vertex conditions on compact metric graphs. In particular, we obtain estimates based on the length of a shortest cycle (girth), diameter, total length of the graph, as well as further metric quantities introduced here for the first time, such as the avoidance diameter. Using known results about Ramanujan graphs, a class of expander graphs, we also prove that some of these metric quantities, or combinations thereof, do not to deliver any spectral bounds with the correct scaling.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2206.10046,
  title  = {Impediments to diffusion in quantum graphs: geometry-based upper bounds on the spectral gap},
  author = {Gregory Berkolaiko and James B. Kennedy and Pavel Kurasov and Delio Mugnolo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.10046},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

15+epsilon pages, 4 figures; with helpful corrections from an anonymous referee

R2 v1 2026-06-24T11:57:49.928Z