Spectral Graph Theory

Tian Luo and Brandon Jiang

What is Spectral Graph Theory?

▦ Study Graph Laplacians: Degree Matrix - Adjacency Matrix

More about the Laplacian
▦ 𝐿 = 𝑀𝑀𝑇 where 𝑀 is the incidence matrix (a 𝑉 × 𝐸 matrix where for
each edge 𝑒𝑖 = 𝑢, 𝑣 , 𝑀𝑖,𝑢 = −1 and 𝑀𝑖,𝑣 = 1)
▦ Symmetric, positive-semidefinite
▦ Number of connected components is the dimension of the nullspace
▦ Can be used to count the number of spanning trees
Why is Spectral Graph Theory Interesting?
▦ Graph Sparsification
▦ Isoperimetric Cuts on Graphs
▦ Max-flow Min-Cut
Graph Sparsification
▦ Remove edges so that graph maintains a certain property
▦ Randomly sample edges
▦ Spanning trees have produced terrible results
𝑛 log 𝑛
▦ Sample edges based on effective resistance, Ο edges, runs in
𝜖2
near linear time, previously Ο(𝑛 log 𝑐 𝑛) for some large c
Isoperimetric Cuts
▦ Finds a minimum-cut such that the two partitions have sizes of
bounded ratio
▦ Cheeger’s Inequality: a lower bound for the second smallest
eigenvalue of the Laplacian
▦ Approximate sparsest cut by the second smallest eigenvalue
Maximum Flow Minimum Cut
▦ Used in image segmentation and various reductions
▦ Common algorithms are exponential or at best Ο(𝑚2 )
(Ford-Fulkerson, Dinic’s, Edmond-Karp)
▦ Max-Flow = Min-Cut
Recent Advances
▦ Electrical Flows, Laplacian Systems, and Faster Approximations of
Maximum Flow in Undirected Graphs (Christiano et al., 2010)
▦ Computes an (1 − 𝜖)-approximation of the Max-Flow Min-Cut problem
1 11
−
in Õ(𝑚𝑛 𝜖
3 3 ) time.
Who at CMU Studies Spectral Graph Theory?
▦ Gary Miller
▦ Timothy Chu (PhD Student)
▦ Graph sparsifiers
▦ Spectral Sketches
▦ Short cycle decomposition
Challenges
▦ Applying theory to practice
▦ Asymptotics vs. Reality
▦ Improvement in algorithms requires change in paradigms of thinking
▦ Randomization/Approximations are often necessary
Future Directions for Research

Max-Flow Min-Cut: Isoperimetric:

▦ Shave down poly-log factors ▦ De-randomize

▦ Shave down ϵ factors
▦ Apply theory to practice
▦ Lower constants
▦ Prove that Max-Flow Min-Cut
has the same hardness as
sorting
Questions