Rank of adjacency matrices of directed (strongly) regular graphs (Q2568399)

Let \(B_r\) be the set of all values of \(k/n\) for which there exists an \(n\times n\) matrix with entries \(0\) and \(1\) such that each row and each column has exactly \(k\) 1's and the matrix has rank~\(r\). First, it is shown that \(B_r\) is finite for every \(r\) by showing that \(| B_r| <2^{r^2}\), and also a lower bound is given \(| B_r| \geq 2^{r-1}-1\). Further, the sets \(B_r\) are explicitly determined for \(1\leq r\leq 7\). In the second part of the paper, the properties of \(B_r\) are applied to directed strongly regular graphs. A directed strongly regular graph with parameters \((n,k,\mu,\lambda,t)\) is a \(k\)-regular directed graph on \(n\) vertices such that every vertex is incident with \(t\) undirected edges, and the number of paths of length 2 from a vertex \(x\) to a vertex \(y\) is \(\lambda\) if there is an edge directed from \(x\) to \(y\) and it is \(\mu\) otherwise. It is shown that there exists no directed strongly regular graph with the parameter set \((n,k,\mu,\lambda,t)\) and the rank of adjacency matrix \(r\) if \(1-\frac{3}{2r} < \frac{k}{n} \leq 1-\frac{1}{r}\).