Zero forcing for inertia sets
Combinatorics
2012-11-21 v1
Abstract
Zero forcing is a combinatorial game played on a graph with a goal of turning all of the vertices of the graph black while having to use as few "unforced" moves as possible. This leads to a parameter known as the zero forcing number which can be used to give an upper bound for the maximum nullity of a matrix associated with the graph. We introduce a new variation on the zero forcing game which can be used to give an upper bound for the maximum nullity of a matrix associated with a graph that has negative eigenvalues. This gives some limits to the number of positive eigenvalues that such a graph can have and so can be used to form lower bounds for the inertia set of a graph.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1211.4618,
title = {Zero forcing for inertia sets},
author = {Steve Butler and Jason Grout and H. Tracy Hall},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.4618},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
16 pages, lots of figures