SPECTRAL GRAPH THEORY

Fan R. K. Chung
Published by AMS , ISBN: 0-8218-0315-8

Preface

This monograph is an intertwined tale of eigenvalues and their use in unlocking a thousand secrets about graphs. The stories will be told --- how the spectrum reveals fundamental properties of a graph, how spectral graph theory links the discrete universe to the continuous one through geometric, analytic and algebraic techniques, and how, through eigenvalues, theory and applications in communications and computer science come together in symbiotic harmony. Since spectral graph theory has been evolving very rapidly, the above goals can only be partially fulfilled here. For example, more advanced material on the heat kernel will be treated in a later publication.

Like all authors, I would hope that these lecture notes are completely error-free. However, to be realistic, I plan to maintain an errata list on my home page. Naturally, I will be grateful for any contribution to this list.

Fan Chung