Graph norms and Sidorenko's conjecture

TL;DR

This paper characterizes when graph homomorphism functions form norms, proves a H"older inequality criterion, verifies Sidorenko's conjecture for certain graphs, and explores the Banach space properties of these norms.

Contribution

It provides a complete characterization of graphs for which the homomorphism-based functions are norms, proves a H"older inequality criterion, and verifies Sidorenko's conjecture for specific graph classes.

Findings

h_H(·)^{1/m} is a norm iff a H"older type inequality holds for H

Verified Sidorenko's conjecture for hypercubes and related graphs

Determined moduli of smoothness and convexity of the norms

Abstract

Let $H$ and $G$ be two finite graphs. Define $h_H(G)$ to be the number of homomorphisms from $H$ to $G$. The function $h_H(\cdot)$ extends in a natural way to a function from the set of symmetric matrices to $\mathbb{R}$ such that for $A_G$, the adjacency matrix of a graph $G$, we have $h_H(A_G)=h_H(G)$. Let $m$ be the number of edges of $H$. It is easy to see that when $H$ is the cycle of length $2n$, then $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is the $2n$-th Schatten-von Neumann norm. We investigate a question of Lov\'{a}sz that asks for a characterization of graphs $H$ for which the function $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm. We prove that $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm if and only if a H\"{o}lder type inequality holds for $H$. We use this inequality to prove both positive and negative results, showing that $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm for certain classes of graphs, and giving some necessary conditions on the structure of $H$ when $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm. As an application we use the inequality to verify a conjecture of Sidorenko for certain graphs including hypercubes. In fact for such graphs we can prove statements that are much stronger than the assertion of Sidorenko's conjecture. We also investigate the $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ norms from a Banach space theoretic point of view, determining their moduli of smoothness and convexity. This generalizes the previously known result for the $2n$-th Schatten-von Neumann norms.