Graph norms and Sidorenko's conjecture

Abstract

Let $H$ and $G$ be two finite graphs. Define $h_H(G)$ to be the number of homomorphisms from $H$ to $G$. The function $h_H(\cdot)$ extends in a natural way to a function from the set of symmetric matrices to $\mathbb{R}$ such that for $A_G$, the adjacency matrix of a graph $G$, we have $h_H(A_G)=h_H(G)$. Let $m$ be the number of edges of $H$. It is easy to see that when $H$ is the cycle of length $2n$, then $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is the $2n$-th Schatten-von Neumann norm. We investigate a question of Lovász that asks for a characterization of graphs $H$ for which the function $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm. We prove that $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm if and only if a Hölder type inequality holds for $H$. We use this inequality to prove both positive and negative results, showing that $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm for certain classes of graphs, and giving some necessary conditions on the structure of $H$ when $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ is a norm. As an application we use the inequality to verify a conjecture of Sidorenko for certain graphs including hypercubes. In fact for such graphs we can prove statements that are much stronger than the assertion of Sidorenko's conjecture. We also investigate the $h_H(\cdot)^{1/m}$ norms from a Banach space theoretic point of view, determining their moduli of smoothness and convexity. This generalizes the previously known result for the $2n$-th Schatten-von Neumann norms.