Tree Decomposition By Eigenvectors

Abstract

In this work a composition-decomposition technique is presented that correlates tree eigenvectors with certain eigenvectors of an associated so-called skeleton forest. In particular, the matching properties of a skeleton determine the multiplicity of the corresponding tree eigenvalue. As an application a characterization of trees that admit eigenspace bases with entries only from the set {0, 1,-1} is presented. Moreover, a result due to Nylen concerned with partitioning eigenvectors of tree pattern matrices is generalized.