Curvature and higher order Buser inequalities for the graph connection Laplacian

TL;DR

This paper establishes higher order Buser inequalities for the eigenvalues of the connection Laplacian on graphs with signatures, linking spectral properties to Cheeger constants and discrete Ricci curvature, and introduces computational methods.

Contribution

It introduces higher order Buser inequalities for connection Laplacians, relating eigenvalues to Cheeger constants and discrete Ricci curvature, with efficient computation methods.

Findings

Derived upper bounds for eigenvalues using Cheeger constants.

Defined Cheeger type constants combining graph expansion and frustration index.

Characterized discrete Ricci curvature via heat semigroup methods.

Abstract

We study the eigenvalues of the connection Laplacian on a graph with an orthogonal group or unitary group signature. We establish higher order Buser type inequalities, i.e., we provide upper bounds for eigenvalues in terms of Cheeger constants in the case of nonnegative Ricci curvature. In this process, we discuss the concepts of Cheeger type constants and a discrete Ricci curvature for connection Laplacians and study their properties systematically. The Cheeger constants are defined as mixtures of the expansion rate of the underlying graph and the frustration index of the signature. The discrete curvature, which can be computed efficiently via solving semidefinite programming problems, has a characterization by the heat semigroup for functions combined with a heat semigroup for vector fields on the graph.