Spectral radii of sparse random matrices (Q2227480)

The paper studies spectral radii of classes of random matrices of combinatorial interest, including the adjacency matrices of (inhomogeneous) Erdős-Rényi random graphs. It was already known from [\textit{Z. Füredi} and \textit{J. Komloś}, Combinatorica 1, 233--241 (1981; Zbl 0494.15010); \textit{V. H. Vu}, Combinatorica 27, No. 6, 721--736 (2007; Zbl 1164.05066)] that, for example, in the sparse Erdős-Rényi random graph \(G(n, d/n)\), the second and smallest adjacency eigenvalues converge to the edges of the support of the asymptotic eigenvalue distribution provided \(d/\log(n)^{4}\rightarrow \infty\). In this paper, these results are extended to a proof that the same statement holds under the weaker assumption that \(d/\log(n)\rightarrow\infty\). A companion paper of the authors shows that in the other regime \(d/\log(n)\rightarrow 0\) the behavior is different [Ann. Probab. 47, No. 3, 1653--1676 (2019; Zbl 1447.60017)]. The main new tool is a refined use of the non-backtracking matrix. It is important to emphasize that the results apply to a much more general class of random graphs, including block stochastic models and inhomogeneous Erdős-Rényi graphs.