Cayley graphs on the symmetric group generated by initial reversals have unit spectral gap (Q2380219)

Summary: In a recent paper Gunnells, Scott and Walden have determined the complete spectrum of the Schreier graph on the symmetric group corresponding to the Young subgroup \(S_{n - 2} \times S_2\) and generated by initial reversals. In particular they find that the first nonzero eigenvalue, or spectral gap, of the Laplacian is always 1, and report that ``empirical evidence'' suggests that this also holds for the corresponding Cayley graph. We provide a simple proof of this last assertion, based on the decomposition of the Laplacian of Cayley graphs, into a direct sum of irreducible representation matrices of the symmetric group.