Nullspace Vertex Partition in Graphs

Irene Sciriha, Xandru Mifsud, James Borg

Published 2020-01-14Version 1

The core vertex set of a graph is an invariant of the graph. It consists of those vertices associated with the non-zero entries of the nullspace vectors of a $\{0,1\}$-adjacency matrix. The remaining vertices of the graph form the core--forbidden vertex set. For graphs with independent core vertices, such as bipartite minimal configurations and trees, the nullspace induces a well defined three part vertex partition. The parts of this partition are the core vertex set, their neighbours and the remote core--forbidden vertices. The set of the remote core--forbidden vertices are those not adjacent to any core vertex. We show that this set can be removed, leaving the nullity unchanged. We show that for graphs with independent core vertices, the submatrix of the adjacency matrix defining the edges incident to the core vertices determines the nullity of adjacency matrix. To maximize the number of edges for optimal network graphs with a specified nullity, we determine which perturbations make up sufficient conditions for the core vertex set of the adjacency matrix of a graph to be preserved on adding edges.