Let be the adjacency matrix of a graph, the all-ones matrix and the all-ones vector. Counting two-step walks gives
Because , any two nonadjacent vertices have a common neighbour, so the graph is connected. The eigenvalue is simple: for a real eigenvector at , a maximal entry and the averaging equation force its neighbours, and then every vertex, to have the same value. Since is real symmetric, its other eigenvectors lie in , where vanishes. Their eigenvalues are therefore
Here for the present incomplete connected graph. Indeed ; if , then , which conflicts with for an edge. If have multiplicities , dimension and zero trace give and . Thus
These are dimensions of eigenspaces, hence integers. A multiplicity may be zero; that does not affect the conclusion.
Write on and on , and put and . Because the two groups have equal size, are orthonormal. Let and . The expected value of the adjacency matrix of a graph is . Consequently
Both displayed eigenvalues are positive under the stated range of , so the first matrix has matrix rank two. The other eigenvalues are zero. The figure shows the within-group and between-group blocks of this balanced stochastic block model; itself has zero diagonal.
Figure 1.
Expected adjacency blocks and the positive rank-one community signal
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For a -regular undirected graph, its Graph Laplacian is , and for any complex vector ,
If , the left side is zero, hence on every edge. In a connected graph all coordinates coincide. Thus the eigenspace is exactly the constant vectors, of dimension one. Since the adjacency matrix of a graph is symmetric and diagonalizable,
If every vertex has degree , then each row of the adjacency matrix of a graph sums to . The nonzero constant vector therefore satisfies
so is an eigenvalue. This uses the usual finite, nonempty graph convention.
Let be the adjacency matrix of a graph and with . Choose a vertex maximizing . Then
Dividing gives
This argument works even with a complex eigenvector; for a finite undirected graph the matrix is real symmetric and all eigenvalues are real.
Let be the adjacency matrix of a graph. Since is a regular graph of degree , every row of sums to . Therefore, for ,
so is a graph eigenvalue.
If , then the quadratic form of the Graph Laplacian gives
Every summand is nonnegative, so along every edge. The graph is connected, hence all coordinates of are equal and is a scalar multiple of . Thus the -eigenspace is one-dimensional. Since is a symmetric matrix, the spectral theorem for real symmetric matrices makes it diagonalizable, so the algebraic multiplicity is also one. This proves the constant eigenvector of a regular graph result.
Take the infinite family
Each complete graph is connected and has graph diameter one. If is its adjacency matrix, then
and direct multiplication gives the adjacency-matrix quadratic relation for a complete graph
Consequently
so , which are precisely the powers through , are linearly dependent for every .
Petersen graph 2026-10-05
The graph whose vertices are two-element subsets of a five-element set, with two vertices adjacent when the subsets are disjoint. It has ten vertices, degree three, zero common neighbours for adjacent pairs and one for nonadjacent pairs. Its adjacency matrix of a graph satisfies and has eigenvalues of multiplicities .
For independent Bernoulli distribution upper-triangular entries of a symmetric zero-diagonal adjacency matrix of a graph, put . For a unit vector , has sub-Gaussian variance proxy at most , by the Hoeffding lemma. Hence . The volumetric bound for Euclidean metric nets gives a -metric net of the unit sphere with at most points. The quadratic form net bound gives on that net. The union bound gives ; integrating this tail proves the displayed expectation bound.