Graph recovery from partial information

Abstract

We introduce a Fourier-analytic framework for graph complexity and recoverability. For a graph G on N vertices labeled by Z_N, we define the Fourier ratio FR(f) of its edge indicator f. The key invariant FR_min(G), the minimum Fourier ratio over all vertex labelings, measures the optimal additive spectral compressibility of the graph. We establish a lower bound FR_min(G) >= E(G)/sqrt(2s), where E(G) is the graph energy and s is the number of edges. This bound is sharp for abelian Cayley graphs under the natural group labeling. Using a compressed sensing theorem, we show that once a labeling with small Fourier ratio is available, the edge map can be efficiently recovered from sparse random samples of adjacency entries. The algorithmic problem of finding such a labeling remains open. We compute FR_min(G) for complete, Turán, cycle, and circulant graphs. Cycles and circulant graphs are highly compressible, while random labelings yield large Fourier complexity. We develop a spectral-projector framework for harmonic graph recovery. For each Laplacian eigenvalue {λ}, its spectral projector Π_λ satisfies FR_min(Π_λ) >= sqrt(m(λ)), where m(λ) is the multiplicity. Fourier-compressible projectors are recoverable via Fourier-side l^1 minimization. For abelian Cayley graphs, the natural group labeling simultaneously minimizes both edge and harmonic complexity, with the harmonic complexity attaining the lower bound exactly. Since low-frequency projectors govern heat flow and random walks, this yields a mechanism for recovering large-scale geometric structure from sparse observations without full graph reconstruction. Finally, we formulate an asymptotic spectral synthesis principle showing that spectrally regular functions cannot concentrate on small exceptional sets, yielding asymptotic uniqueness and recovery results for incomplete graph data.