Spectral radius of graphs of given size with forbidden subgraphs

TL;DR

This paper investigates the spectral radius of graphs with given size and forbidden subgraphs, establishing new bounds and characterizations for the presence of quadrilaterals and specific cycles.

Contribution

It extends previous spectral radius bounds to larger graphs, identifying conditions under which certain cycles must appear or the graph must be isomorphic to specific extremal structures.

Findings

Non-bipartite graphs with size ≥51 and spectral radius ≥ρ(S_{m-1}^{2}) contain a quadrilateral unless they are exceptional.

Graphs with even size ≥74 and spectral radius ≥ρ(S_{(m+4)/2,2}^{-}) contain a C_{5}^{+} unless they are isomorphic to S_{(m+4)/2,2}^{-}.

The results generalize and refine earlier bounds for spectral radius and forbidden subgraphs.

Abstract

Let $\rho(G)$ be the spectral radius of a graph $G$ with $m$ edges. Let $S_{m-k+1}^{k}$ be the graph obtained from $K_{1,m-k}$ by adding $k$ disjoint edges within its independent set. Nosal's theorem states that if $\rho(G)>\sqrt{m}$, then $G$ contains a triangle. Zhai and Shu showed that any non-bipartite graph $G$ with $m\geq26$ and $\rho(G)\geq\rho(S_{m}^{1})>\sqrt{m-1}$ contains a quadrilateral unless $G\cong S_{m}^{1}$ [M.Q. Zhai, J.L. Shu, Discrete Math. 345 (2022) 112630]. Wang proved that if $\rho(G)\geq\sqrt{m-1}$ for a graph $G$ with size $m\geq27$, then $G$ contains a quadrilateral unless $G$ is one of four exceptional graphs [Z.W. Wang, Discrete Math. 345 (2022) 112973]. In this paper, we show that any non-bipartite graph $G$ with size $m\geq51$ and $\rho(G)\geq\rho(S_{m-1}^{2})>\sqrt{m-2}$ contains a quadrilateral unless $G$ is one of three exceptional graphs. Moreover, we show that if $\rho(G)\geq\rho(S_{\frac{m+4}{2},2}^{-})$ for a graph $G$ with even size $m\geq74$, then $G$ contains a $C_{5}^{+}$ unless $G\cong S_{\frac{m+4}{2},2}^{-}$, where $C_{t}^{+}$ denotes the graph obtained from $C_{t}$ and $C_{3}$ by identifying an edge, $S_{n,k}$ denotes the graph obtained by joining each vertex of $K_{k}$ to $n-k$ isolated vertices and $S_{n,k}^{-}$ denotes the graph obtained by deleting an edge incident to a vertex of degree two, respectively.