Hearing Euler characteristic of graphs

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the Euler characteristic of a graph can be inferred from the lowest eigenenergies of a quantum graph, enabling topological analysis through spectral data without visual inspection.

Contribution

It introduces a method to determine the Euler characteristic from spectral data of quantum graphs, confirmed by microwave network experiments, linking eigenenergies to topological features.

Findings

Euler characteristic can be deduced from eigenenergies.

Lowest resonances reveal planarity of networks.

Measured Euler characteristic detects fully connected graphs.

Abstract

The Euler characteristic $\chi =|V|-|E|$ and the total length $\mathcal{L}$ are the most important topological and geometrical characteristics of a metric graph. Here, $|V|$ and $|E|$ denote the number of vertices and edges of a graph. The Euler characteristic determines the number $\beta$ of independent cycles in a graph while the total length determines the asymptotic behavior of the energy eigenvalues via the Weyl's law. We show theoretically and confirm experimentally that the Euler characteristic can be determined (heard) from a finite sequence of the lowest eigenenergies $\lambda_1, \ldots, \lambda_N$ of a simple quantum graph, without any need to inspect the system visually. In the experiment quantum graphs are simulated by microwave networks. We demonstrate that the sequence of the lowest resonances of microwave networks with $\beta \leq 3$ can be directly used in determining whether a network is planar, i.e., can be embedded in the plane. Moreover, we show that the measured Euler characteristic $\chi$ can be used as a sensitive revealer of the fully connected graphs.