The American Journal of Combinatorics (Jan 2022)
Normalized Laplacians for gain graphs
Abstract
We propose the notion of normalized Laplacian matrix $\mathcal{L}(\Phi)$ for a gain graph $\Phi$ and study its properties in detail, providing insights and counterexamples along the way. We establish bounds for the eigenvalues of $\mathcal{L}(\Phi)$ and characterize the classes of graphs for which equality holds. The relationships between the balancedness, bipartiteness, and their connection to the spectrum of $\mathcal{L}(\Phi)$ are also studied. Besides, we extend the edge version of eigenvalue interlacing for the gain graphs. Thereupon, we determine the coefficients for the characteristic polynomial of $\mathcal{L}(\Phi)$.