On Energy of Graphs with Self-Loops

TL;DR

This paper confirms a conjecture that adding self-loops to certain vertices can increase a graph's energy and constructs pairs of equienergetic self-loop graphs for all positive integers n, expanding understanding of graph energy.

Contribution

It proves the conjecture that self-loops can increase graph energy and provides a method to construct equienergetic self-loop graphs for all n ≥ 1.

Findings

Confirmed that self-loops can increase graph energy.

Constructed pairs of equienergetic self-loop graphs for all n ≥ 1.

Extended the concept of graph energy to self-loop graphs.

Abstract

Let G be a simple graph on n vertices with vertex set V(G). The energy of G, denoted by, $\mathcal{E}(G)$ is the sum of all absolute values of the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix $A(G)$. It is the first eigenvalue-based topological molecular index and is related to the molecular orbital energy levels of ${\pi}$-electrons in conjugated hydrocarbons. Recently, the concept of energy of a graph is extended to a self-loop graph. Let $S$ be a subset of $V(G)$. The graph $G_S$ is obtained from the graph $G$ by attaching a self-loop at each of the vertices of $G$ which are in the set $S$. The energy of the self-loop graph $G_S$, denoted by $\mathcal{E}(G_S)$, is the sum of all absolute eigenvalues of the matrix $A(G_S)$. Two non-isomorphic self-loop graphs are equienergetic if their energies are equal. Akbari et al. (2023)conjectured that there exist a subset $S$ of $V(G)$ such that $\mathcal(G_S) > \mathcal{E}(G)$. In this paper, we confirm this conjecture. Also, we construct pairs of equienergetic self-loop graphs of order 24n for all n \ge 1.