ON THE SPREAD OF THE GENERALIZED ADJACENCY MATRIX OF A GRAPH.

Let D(G) and A(G), respectively, be the diagonal matrix of vertex de- grees and the adjacency matrix of a connected graph G. The generalized adjacency matrix of G is defined as Aα(G) = αD(G) + (1 − α)A(G), α ∈ [0, 1]. The spread of the generalized adjacency matrix, denoted by S(Aα(G)), is defined as the difference of the largest and smallest eigenvalues of Aα(G). The spread S(Q(G)) of Q(G), the signless Laplacian matrix of G and S(A(G)) of A(G) are similarly defined. In this paper, we establish the relationships between S(Aα(G)), S(Q(G)) and S(A(G)). Further, we find bounds for S(Aα(G)) involving different parameters of G. Also, we obtain lower bounds for S(Aα(G)) in terms of the clique number and independence number of G, and we characterize the extremal graphs in some cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]