More results on the spectral radius of graphs with no odd wheels (Q6973961)

Let \(G\) be a simple graph of order \(n\). Let \(A(G)\) be the adjacency matrix of \(G\) and \(\lambda_1(G)\) be the largest eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix. An odd wheel \(W_{2k+1}\) with \(k\geq 2\) is a graph obtained from a cycle of order \(2k\) by adding a new vertex connecting to all the vertices of the cycle. Let \(\mathrm{SPEX}(n,W_{2k+1})\) be the set of \(W_{2k+1}\)-free graphs of order \(n\) with the maximum spectral radius. \textit{S. Cioabă} et al. [Eur. J. Comb. 99, Article ID 103420, 19 p. (2022; Zbl 1480.05085)] characterized the graphs in \(\mathrm{SPEX}(n,W_{2k+1})\) for sufficiently large \(n\), where \(k \geq 2\) and \(k\neq 4,5\).\N\NIn this paper, the author completely characterizes the graphs in \(\mathrm{SPEX}(n,W_{2k+1})\). The main result is Theorem 1.3 and in Section 2 is its proof.\N\NTo prove this result, the author proves Lemma 2.6. The proof is easy to read because it is divided into two cases.\N\NLet \(\mathcal{U}_{k,n}\) be the family of \((k-1)\)-regular or nearly \((k-1)\)-regular graphs of order \(n\) which do not contain a path of order \(2k-1\). For even \(k \geq 4\) and odd \(n \geq k+1\), let \(\mathcal{V}_{k,n}\) be the family of nearly \((k-1)\)-regular graphs of order \(n\), in which one component is \(K_1 \vee \overline{M_{k-2}} \vee K_2\) and any other component has at most \(2k-2\) vertices. When \(k\) is even and \(n \equiv 2 \pmod 4\), in Theorem 1.4, the author determines the exact spectral extremal graphs in \(\mathrm{SPEX}(n,W_{2k+1})\). The proof of this result is the focus of Section 3.\N\NIn my opinion, this paper is an important paper on this matter.