The rank of a complex unit gain graph in terms of the rank of its underlying graph

Abstract

Let $\Phi=(G, \varphi)$ be a complex unit gain graph (or $\mathbb{T}$-gain graph) and $A(\Phi)$ be its adjacency matrix, where $G$ is called the underlying graph of $\Phi$. The rank of $\Phi$, denoted by $r(\Phi)$, is the rank of $A(\Phi)$. Denote by $\theta(G)=|E(G)|-|V(G)|+\omega(G)$ the dimension of cycle spaces of $G$, where $|E(G)|$, $|V(G)|$ and $\omega(G)$ are the number of edges, the number of vertices and the number of connected components of $G$, respectively. In this paper, we investigate bounds for $r(\Phi)$ in terms of $r(G)$, that is, $r(G)-2\theta(G)\leq r(\Phi)\leq r(G)+2\theta(G)$, where $r(G)$ is the rank of $G$. As an application, we also prove that $1-\theta(G)\leq\frac{r(\Phi)}{r(G)}\leq1+\theta(G)$. All corresponding extremal graphs are characterized.