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Discrete Mathematics xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Discrete Mathematics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/disc On the k-independence number of graphs A. Abiad a,b, G. Coutinho c, M.A. Fiol d a Department of Quantitative Economics, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands b Department of Mathematics: Analysis, Logic and Discrete Mathematics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium c Department of Computer Science, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil d Departament de Matemàtiques, Barcelona Graduate School of Mathematics, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain article info a b s t r a c t Article history: This paper generalizes and unifies the existing spectral bounds on the k-independence Received 19 March 2018 number of a graph, which is the maximum size of a set of vertices at pairwise distance Accepted 18 January 2019 greater than k. The previous bounds known in the literature follow as a corollary of the Available online xxxx main results in this work. We show that for most cases our bounds outperform the previous Keywords: known bounds. Some infinite families of graphs where the bounds are tight are also Graph presented. Finally, as a byproduct, we derive some spectral lower bounds for the diameter k-independence number of a graph. Spectrum ' 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Interlacing Regular partition Antipodal distance-regular graph 1. Introduction Given a graph G, let αk D αk(G) denote the size of the largest set of vertices such that any two vertices in the set are at distance larger than k. This choice of notation is no coincidence, since actually α1 is just the independence number of a graph. The parameter αk(G) therefore represents the largest number of vertices which can be k C 1 spread out in G. It is known that determining αk is NP-Hard in general [19]. The k-independence number of a graph is directly related to other combinatorial parameters such as the average distance [13], packing chromatic number [14], injective chromatic number [17], and strong chromatic index [21]. Upper bounds on the k-independence number directly give lower bounds on the corresponding distance or packing chromatic number. Regarding it, Alon and Mohar [2] asked for the extremal value of the distance chromatic number for graphs of a given girth and degree. In this paper we generalize and improve the known spectral upper bounds for the k-independence number from [1,8]. For some cases, we also show that our bounds are sharp. As far as we are aware, there seems to be some conflict in the existing literature regarding the use of the term `k-independence number'. The following list contains the three conflicting definitions, which all, nonetheless, are a natural generalization of the concept of independence number. 1. Caro and Hansberg [6] use the term `k-independence number' to denote the maximum size of a set of vertices in a graph whose induced subgraph has maximum degree k. Thus, α0 is the usual independence number. 2. Špacapan [22] uses `k-independence number' to denote the size of the largest k-colorable subgraph of G. With this notation, α1 stands for the usual independence number of G. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Abiad), [email protected] (G. Coutinho), [email protected] (M.A. Fiol). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.disc.2019.01.016 0012-365X/' 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: A. Abiad, G. Coutinho and M.A. Fiol, On the k-independence number of graphs, Discrete Mathematics (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.disc.2019.01.016. 2 A. Abiad, G. Coutinho and M.A. Fiol / Discrete Mathematics xxx (xxxx) xxx 3. Fiol [8] and Abiad, Tait, and Cioabă [1] use `k-independence number' to denote the size of the largest set of vertices such that any two vertices in the set are at distance larger than k. The latter definition is the one we use in this work. The first known spectral bound for the independence number α is due to Cvetkovi¢ [7]. Theorem 1.1 (Cvetkovi¢ [7]). Let G be a graph with eigenvalues λ1 ≥ · · · ≥ λn. Then, α ≤ minfjfi V λi ≥ 0gj and jfi V λi ≤ 0gjg: Another well-known result is the following bound due to Hoffman (unpublished; see for instance Haemers [16]). Theorem 1.2 (Hoffman [16]). If G is a regular graph on n vertices with eigenvalues λ1 ≥ · · · ≥ λn, then −λn α ≤ n : λ1 − λn Regarding the k-independence number, the following three results are known. The first is due to Fiol [8] and requires a preliminary definition. Let G be a graph with distinct eigenvalues θ0 > ··· > θd. Let Pk(x) be chosen among all polynomials p(x) 2 Rk(x), that is, polynomials of real coefficients and degree at most k, satisfying jp(θi)j ≤ 1 for all i D 1;:::; d, and such that Pk(θ0) is maximized. The polynomial Pk(x) defined above is called the k-alternating polynomial of G and was shown to be unique in [12], where it was used to study the relationship between the spectrum of a graph and its diameter. Theorem 1.3 (Fiol [8]). Let G be a d-regular graph on n vertices, with distinct eigenvalues θ0 > ··· > θd and let Pk(x) be its k-alternating polynomial. Then, 2n αk ≤ : Pk(θ0) C 1 The second and third bounds are due to Abiad, Cioabă, and Tait [1]. The first is a Cvetkovi¢-like approach, whereas the second resembles Hoffman's. Theorem 1.4 (Abiad, Cioabă, Tait [1]). Let G be a graph on n vertices with adjacency matrix A, with eigenvalues λ1 ≥ · · · ≥ λn. k Let wk and Wk be respectively the smallest and the largest diagonal entries of A . Then, α λk w α λk : k ≤ jfi V i ≥ k(G)gj and k ≤ jfi V i ≤ Wk(G)gj Theorem 1.5 (Abiad, Cioabă, Tait [1]). Let G be a δ-regular graph on n vertices with adjacency matrix A, whose distinct eigenvalues θ δ > > θ 2 k θ θ ; θ are 0(D ) ··· d. Let Wfk be the largest diagonal entry of A C A C···C A . Let D maxfj 1j j djg. Then, C Pk θ j Wfk jD1 αk ≤ n : Pk δj C Pk θ j jD1 jD1 2. Preliminaries For basic notation and results see [3,15]. Let G D (V ; E) be a graph with n D jV j vertices, m D jEj edges, and adjacency D fθ > θ (m1) > ··· > θ (md)g matrix A with spectrum sp G 0 1 d , where the superscripts denote multiplicities. When the eigenvalues are presented with possible repetitions, we shall indicate them by λ1 ≥ λ2 ≥ · · · ≥ λn. Let us consider the scalar product in RdTxU: d 1 1 X hf ; giG D tr(f (A)g(A)) D mif (θi)g(θi): n n iD0 The so-called predistance polynomials p0(D 1); p1;:::; pd are a sequence of orthogonal polynomials with respect to the D k k2 D θ above product, with dgr pi i, and are normalized in such a way that pi G pi( 0) (this makes sense since it is known that pi(θ0) > 0) for i D 0;:::; d. Therefore they are uniquely determined, for instance, following the Gram–Schmidt process. They were introduced by Fiol and Garriga in [10] to prove the so-called `spectral excess theorem' for distance-regular graphs. We also use the sum polynomials qi D p0 C· · ·Cpi, for i D 0;:::; d−1, which are also a sequence of orthogonal polynomials, now with respect to the scalar product d−1 1 X hf ; giTGU D mi(θ0 − θi)f (θi)g(θi); n iD0 (see [11, Prop. 4.3] for a proof) and satisfy 1 D q0(θ0) < q1(θ0) < ··· < qd−1(θ0) < n. See [5] for further details and applications. Please cite this article as: A. Abiad, G. Coutinho and M.A. Fiol, On the k-independence number of graphs, Discrete Mathematics (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.disc.2019.01.016. A. Abiad, G. Coutinho and M.A. Fiol / Discrete Mathematics xxx (xxxx) xxx 3 Eigenvalue interlacing is a powerful and old technique that has found countless applications in combinatorics and other fields. This technique will be used in several of our proofs. For more details, historical remarks and other applications see Fiol and Haemers [9,16]. Given square matrices A and B with respective eigenvalues λ1 ≥ · · · ≥ λn and µ1 ≥ · · · ≥ µm, with m < n, we say that the second sequence interlaces the first if, for all i D 1;:::; m, it follows that λi ≥ µi ≥ λn−mCi: Theorem 2.1 (Interlacing [9,16]). Let S be a real n × m matrix such that S T S D I, and let A be a n × n matrix with eigenvalues T λ1 ≥ · · · ≥ λn. Define B D S AS, and call its eigenvalues µ1 ≥ · · · ≥ µm. Then, (i) The eigenvalues of B interlace those of A. (ii) If µi D λi or µi D λn−mCi, then there is an eigenvector v of B for µi such that Sv is eigenvector of A for µi. (iii) If there is an integer k 2 f0;:::; mg such that λi D µi for 1 ≤ i ≤ k, and µi D λn−mCi for k C 1 ≤ i ≤ m (tight interlacing), then SB D AS. Two interesting particular cases where interlacing occurs (obtained by choosing appropriately the matrix S) are the following. Let A be the adjacency matrix of a graph G D (V ; E).