de Caen's inequality and bounds on the largest Laplacian eigenvalue of a graph (Q5935566)

The interest in the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix of a graph arises from their relationship with several graph invariants. The authors prove that a connected graph \(G\) reaches the equality in de Caen's inequality [\textit{D. de Caen}, Discrete Math. 185, No. 1-3, 245-248 (1998; Zbl 0955.05059)] if and only if \(G\) is either a star graph or a complete graph. The authors provide also upper bounds for the largest Laplacian eigenvalue of a connected graph and obtain characterizations of bipartite regular graphs as graphs reaching these bounds.