A relation between proximity and the third largest distance eigenvalue of a graph (Q2659162)

Let \(G\) be a connected graph. The proximity \(\pi\) of \(G\) is the minimum average distance from a vertex of \(G\) to all others. Similarly, the remoteness \(\rho\) of \(G\) is the maximum average distance from a vertex to all others. The distance matrix \(D\) of a graph \(G\) is the matrix indexed by the vertices of \(G\) where \(D_{i,j}\) is the distance between vertices \(i, j \in V(G)\). The distance eigenvalues of a connected graph \(G\), denoted by \(\partial_1, \partial_2, \ldots, \partial_n\), are those of its distance matrix \(D\), and are arranged such that \(\partial_1\geqslant \partial_2\geqslant \cdots\geqslant \partial_n\). The main result of this paper is as follows: \(\pi+\partial_3 > 0\) holds for any graph with a diameter at least 3. It confirms a conjecture proposed by \textit{M. Aouchiche} and \textit{P. Hansen} [ibid. 213, 17--25 (2016; Zbl 1344.05085)]. On the other hand, this interesting result can derive some relations between \(\partial_3\) and several distance invariants of a graph such as remoteness, diameter, radius, average eccentricity and average distance.