On the second-largest modulus among the eigenvalues of a power hypergraph

Abstract

It is well known that the algebraic multiplicity of an eigenvalue of a graph (or real symmetric matrix) is equal to the dimension of its corresponding linear eigen-subspace, also known as the geometric multiplicity. However, for hypergraphs, the relationship between these two multiplicities remains an open problem. For a graph $G=(V,E)$ and $k \geq 3$, the $k$-power hypergraph $G^{(k)}$ is a $k$-uniform hypergraph obtained by adding $k-2$ new vertices to each edge of $G$, who always has non-real eigenvalues. In this paper, we determine the second-largest modulus $\Lambda$ among the eigenvalues of $G^{(k)}$, which is indeed an eigenvalue of $G^{(k)}$. The projective eigenvariety $\mathbb{V}_{\Lambda}$ associated with $\Lambda$ is the set of the eigenvectors of $G^{(k)}$ corresponding to $\Lambda$ considered in the complex projective space. We show that the dimension of $\mathbb{V}_{\Lambda}$ is zero, i.e, there are finitely many eigenvectors corresponding to $\Lambda$ up to a scalar. We give both the algebraic multiplicity of $\Lambda$ and the total multiplicity of the eigenvector in $\mathbb{V}_{\Lambda}$ in terms of the number of the weakest edges of $G$. Our result show that these two multiplicities are equal.