Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / ii / Paper 1 / 17G / a

Let $A$ be the adjacency matrix of a graph. Since $G$ is a regular graph of degree $d$, every row of $A$ sums to $d$. Therefore, for $\mathbf{e}=(1,\dots ,1{)}^T$,so $d$ is a graph eigenvalue.

If $Av=dv$, then the quadratic form of the Graph Laplacian $L=dI-A$ givesEvery summand is nonnegative, so $v_i=v_j$ along every edge. The graph is connected, hence all coordinates of $v$ are equal and $v$ is a scalar multiple of $\mathbf{e}$. Thus the $d$-eigenspace is one-dimensional. Since $A$ 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.