Spectra of combinatorial Laplace operators on simplicial complexes (Q2437413)

The paper presents a systematic framework which can be used to study various graph Laplacians and to study the normalized Laplacian on simplicial complexes. The combinatorial Laplacian is closely connected to the choice of the scalar product on the coboundary vector spaces and these scalar products can be viewed in terms of weight functions -- and by controlling the weights one controls the associated eigenvalues of the Laplacian. The authors study the spectrum of the normalized Laplacian in relation to the combinatorial structure of the complex and obtain new insights into the special case of the normalized graph Laplacian. \S1 presents a brief historical outline of the problem. \S2 introduces the basic notational conventions for the combinatorial Laplacian. The basic properties of the combinatorial Laplacian are discussed in \S3 where an upper and lower bound for the maximal eigenvalue are given. \S4 deals with circuits, paths, stars, and their spectrum; the spectrum of the up/down normalized Laplace operator is calculated for some classes of simplicial complexes. In \S5, the spectrum of the normalized Laplacian of a regular simplicial complex is studied. Various constructions (wedges, joins, and duplication of motifs) are given and their effect on the spectrum is studied in \S6. One of the major advantages of the normalized combinatorial Laplacian is the fact that the spectrum of a simplicial complex \(K\) is bounded above by a constant. \S7 examines the spectrum of \(\Delta_i^{up}\) and the combinatorial properties encoded by it. The paper concludes with a very useful bibliography related to the subject.