The non-backtracking spectrum of the universal cover of a graph
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
A non-backtracking walk on a graph, <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> , is a directed path of directed edges of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> such that no edge is the inverse of its preceding edge. Non-backtracking walks of a given length can be counted using the non-backtracking adjacency matrix, <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper B"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">B</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> , indexed by <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> ’s directed edges and related to Ihara’s Zeta function. We show how to determine <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper B"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">B</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> ’s spectrum in the case where <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> is a tree covering a finite graph. We show that when <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> is not regular, this spectrum can have positive measure in the complex plane, unlike the regular case. We show that outside of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper B"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">B</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> ’s spectrum, the corresponding Green function has “periodic decay ratios”. The existence of such a “ratio system” can be effectively checked and is equivalent to being outside the spectrum. We also prove that the spectral radius of the non-backtracking walk operator on the tree covering a finite graph is exactly <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="StartRoot normal g normal r EndRoot"> <mml:semantics> <mml:msqrt> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">g</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">r</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msqrt> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">\sqrt {\mathrm {gr}}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> , where <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="normal g normal r"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">g</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">r</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">\mathrm {gr}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> is the cogrowth of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper B"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">B</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> , or growth rate of the tree. This further motivates the definition of the graph theoretical Riemann hypothesis proposed by Stark and Terras. Finally, we give experimental evidence that for a fixed, finite graph, <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> , a random lift of large degree has non-backtracking new spectrum near that of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> ’s universal cover. This suggests a new generalization of Alon’s second eigenvalue conjecture.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it