A characterization of Q-polynomial distance-regular graphs

Abstract: We obtain the following characterization of

Q

-polynomial distance-regular graphs. Let

G

denote a distance-regular graph with diameter

d g e 3

. Let

E

denote a minimal idempotent of

G

which is not the trivial idempotent

E_{0}

. Let

{h e t a_{i}^{*}}_{i = 0}^{d}

denote the dual eigenvalue sequence for

E

. We show that

E

is

Q

-polynomial if and only if (i) the entry-wise product

E c i r c E

is a linear combination of

E_{0}

,

E

, and at most one other minimal idempotent of

G

; (ii) there exists a complex scalar

such that

is independent of

i

for

1 l e i l e d - 1

; (iii)

h e t a_{i}^{*} e h e t a_{0}^{*}

for

1 l e i l e d

.

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