 Normal modes of an anchored complete spring graph

Connect every pair among $n$ moving scalar coordinates and one fixed coordinate by identical springs of stiffness $k$. The coupling pattern is the complete graph $K_{n+1}$ with one vertex fixed. Its potential energy is $k{\sum }_{i<j}(X_i-X_j{)}^2/2$. The moving-coordinate stiffness matrix is the principal submatrix displayed in the header. For equal masses $m$, the uniform normal mode has squared angular frequency $k/m$, while every sum-zero vector has squared angular frequency $(n+1)k/m$. There are $n-1$ such degenerate modes. This follows directly from the Laplacian spectrum of a complete graph and its rank-one matrix form. Constant gravitational forces shift the equilibrium without changing the stiffness.