Skew spectra of oriented graphs (Q2380222)

Summary: An oriented graph \(G^\sigma\) is a simple undirected graph \(G\) with an orientation \(\sigma\), which assigns to each edge a direction so that \(G^\sigma\) becomes a directed graph. \(G\) is called the underlying graph of \(G^\sigma\), and we denote by \(Sp(G)\) the adjacency spectrum of \(G\). Skew-adjacency matrix \(S(G^\sigma)\) of \(G^\sigma\) is introduced, and its spectrum \(Sp_S(G^\sigma)\) is called the skew-spectrum of \(G^\sigma\). The relationship between \(Sp_S(G^\sigma)\) and \(Sp(G)\) is studied. In particular, we prove that (i) \(Sp_S(G^\sigma)= {\mathbf i}Sp(G)\) for some orientation \(\sigma\) if and only if \(G\) is bipartite, (ii) \(Sp_S(G^\sigma)={\mathbf i}Sp(G)\) for any orientation \(\sigma\) if and only if \(G\) is a forest, where \({\mathbf i}= \sqrt{-1}\).