Graphical designs and extremal combinatorics

Abstract

A graphical design is a proper subset of vertices of a graph on which many eigenfunctions of the Laplacian operator have mean value zero. In this paper, we show that extremal independent sets make extremal graphical designs, that is, a design on which the maximum possible number of eigenfunctions have mean value zero. We then provide examples of such graphs and sets, which arise naturally in extremal combinatorics. We also show that sets which realize the isoperimetric constant of a graph make extremal graphical designs, and provide examples for them as well. We investigate the behavior of graphical designs under the operation of weak graph product. In addition, we present a family of extremal graphical designs for the hypercube graph.