New upper bounds on the spectral radius of unicyclic graphs (Q2469505)

In a unicyclic graph \(G\) with maximum vertex degree \(\Delta\), let \(k\) be the maximum distance between a vertex in a cycle and a vertex not in cycle plus one. The author shows that the spectral radius of the Laplacian matrix of \(G\) is then bounded by \(\Delta+2\sqrt{\Delta-1}\cos\frac{\pi}{2k+1}\) whenever \(\Delta\geq 3\), while the spectral radius of the adjacency matrix of \(G\) is bounded just by \(2\sqrt{\Delta-1}\cos\frac{\pi}{2k+1}\) whenever \(\Delta\geq 4\) or \(\Delta=3\) and \(k\geq 4\). This is an improvement of a result of \textit{S. Hu} [Discrete Math. 307, 280--284 (2007; Zbl 1116.05050)].