The maximum spectral radius of $\theta_{1,3,3}$-free graphs with given size

Abstract

A graph $G$ is said to be $F$-free if it does not contain $F$ as a subgraph. A theta graph, say $\theta_{l_1,l_2,l_3}$, is the graph obtained by connecting two distinct vertices with three internally disjoint paths of length $l_1, l_2, l_3$, where $l_1\leq l_2\leq l_3$ and $l_2\geq2$. Recently, Li, Zhao and Zou [arXiv:2409.15918v1] characterized the $\theta_{1,p,q}$-free graph of size $m$ having the largest spectral radius, where $q\geq p\geq3$ and $p+q\geq2k+1\geq7$, and proposed a problem on characterizing the graphs with the maximum spectral radius among $\theta_{1,3,3}$-free graphs. In this paper, we consider this problem and determine the maximum spectral radius of $\theta_{1,3,3}$-free graphs with size $m$ and characterize the extremal graph. Up to now, all the graphs in $\mathcal{G}(m,\theta_{1,p,q})$ which have the largest spectral radius have been determined, where $q\geq p\geq 2$.