English

On the distribution of topological and spectral indices on random graphs

Combinatorics 2026-02-23 v1

Abstract

We perform a detailed statistical study of the distribution of topological and spectral indices on random graphs G=(V,E)G=(V,E) in a wide range of connectivity regimes. First, we consider degree-based topological indices (TIs), and focus on two classes of them: XΣ(G)=uvEf(du,dv)X_\Sigma(G) = \sum_{uv \in E} f(d_u,d_v) and XΠ(G)=uvEg(du,dv)X_\Pi(G) = \prod_{uv \in E} g(d_u,d_v), where uvuv denotes the edge of GG connecting the vertices uu and vv, dud_u is the degree of the vertex uu, and f(x,y)f(x,y) and g(x,y)g(x,y) are functions of the vertex degrees. Specifically, we apply XΣ(G)X_\Sigma(G) and XΠ(G)X_\Pi(G) on Erd\"os-R\'enyi graphs and random geometric graphs along the full transition from almost isolated vertices to mostly connected graphs. While we verify that P(XΣ(G))P(X_\Sigma(G)) converges to a standard normal distribution, we show that P(XΠ(G))P( X_\Pi(G)) converges to a log-normal distribution. In addition we also analyze Revan-degree-based indices and spectral indices (those defined from the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the graph adjacency matrix). Indeed, for Revan-degree indices, we obtain results equivalent to those for standard degree-based TIs. Instead, for spectral indices, we report two distinct patterns: the distribution of indices defined only from eigenvalues approaches a normal distribution, while the distribution of those indices involving both eigenvalues and eigenvectors approaches a log-normal distribution.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2505.04008,
  title  = {On the distribution of topological and spectral indices on random graphs},
  author = {C. T. Martínez-Martínez and R. Aguilar-Sánchez and J. A. Méndez-Bermúdez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.04008},
  year   = {2026}
}