On the largest $A_{\alpha}$-spectral radius of cacti

TL;DR

This paper investigates the maximum $A_{\alpha}$-spectral radius of cactus graphs, identifying extremal structures and eigenvalues, thereby extending and enriching existing spectral graph theory results.

Contribution

It determines the extremal cactus graphs with maximum $A_{\alpha}$-spectral radius and provides their eigenvalues, extending previous bounds and results in spectral graph theory.

Findings

Identified extremal cactus graphs with maximum $A_{\alpha}$-spectral radius.

Derived all eigenvalues of the extremal cacti.

Extended previous bounds and results in spectral graph theory.

Abstract

Let $A(G)$ be the adjacent matrix and $D(G)$ the diagonal matrix of the degrees of a graph $G$, respectively. For $0 \leq \alpha \leq 1$, the $A_{\alpha}$ matrix $A_{\alpha}(G) = \alpha D(G) +(1-\alpha)A(G)$ is given by Nikiforov. Clearly, $A_{0} (G)$ is the adjacent matrix and $2 A_{\frac{1}{2}}$ is the signless Laplacian matrix. A cactus is a connected graph such that any two of its cycles have at most one common vertex, that is an extension of the tree. The $A_{\alpha}$-spectral radius of a cactus graph with $n$ vertices and $k$ cycles is explored. The outcomes obtained in this paper can imply previous bounds of Nikiforov et al., and Lov\'{a}sz and Pelik\'{a}n. In addition, the corresponding extremal graphs are determined. Furthermore, we proposed all eigenvalues of such extremal cacti. Our results extended and enriched previous known results.