Proof of a conjecture on the determinant of the walk matrix of rooted product with a path

Authors:

Abstract: The walk matrix of an

n

-vertex graph

G

with adjacency matrix

A

, denoted by

W (G)

, is

[e, A e, l d o t s, A^{n - 1} e]

, where

e

is the all-ones vector. Let

G c i r c P_{m}

be the rooted product of

G

and a rooted path

P_{m}

(taking an endvertex as the root), i.e.,

G c i r c P_{m}

is a graph obtained from

G

and

n

copies of

P_{m}

by identifying each vertex of

G

with an endvertex of a copy of

P_{m}

. Mao-Liu-Wang (2015) and Mao-Wang (2022) proved that, for

m = 2

and

m i n 3, 4

, respectively

det W(Gcirc P_m)=pm a_0^{lfloorfrac{m}{2} floor}(det W(G))^m,

where

a_{0}

is the constant term of the characteristic polynomial of

G

. Furthermore, Mao-Wang (2022) conjectured that the formula holds for any

m g e 2

. In this note, we verify this conjecture using the technique of Chebyshev polynomials.

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