Use the part-preserving bipartite four-cycle density convention
Here is the indicator function of adjacency, and repeated labels are allowed. This is the homomorphism density convention appropriate to the four-cycle norm. We derive the needed counting and operator norm facts directly.
Let be the -by- biadjacency matrix, let be the all-ones vector, let , and put . The degree hypothesis says
so the centered matrix annihilates on both sides. In particular, , and
The two terms have zero products in either order. Expanding the matrix trace directly counts four adjacency factors:
Since and , we obtain
The given upper bound therefore implies
This computation proves the centered four-cycle identity for a biregular graph, rather than assuming a four-cycle norm identity.
The matrix is a positive semidefinite matrix. By the spectral theorem for real symmetric matrices it has nonnegative eigenvalues , and
Moreover, for the Euclidean norm,
Indeed , whose maximum on unit vectors is ; the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality characterization also shows that and have the same operator norm. Taking fourth roots thus gives
where the error parameter is nonnegative, as in the claimed bound.
Finally use the indicator vectors , . Their Euclidean norms are and , so the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the operator norm estimate yield
This is the required discrepancy bound. It also holds when either subset is empty or . In fact, because annihilates constants, replacing by gives the stronger bound . This is the spectral discrepancy bound for a biregular graph.