Graphs and Generalized Witt identities

Abstract

This paper is about the determinantal identities associated with the Ihara (Ih) zeta function of a non directed graph and the Bowen-Lanford (BL) zeta function of a directed graph. They will be called the Ih and the BL identities in this paper. We show that the Witt identity (WI) is a special case of the BL identity and inspired by the links the WI has with Lie algebras and combinatorics we investigate similar aspects of the Ih and BL identities. We show that they satisfy generalizations of the Strehl identity and Carlitz, Metropolis-Rota relations and each one of them can be interpreted as the denominator (or generalized Witt) identity of a free Lie superalgebra. Also, they can be associated to a coloring problem. New interpretations of the Ih and BL zeta functions are presented.