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arXiv · 2507.09511

Equiangular lines via nodal domains

Chuanyuan Ge·Shiping Liu
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Abstract

For given $\Delta>0$ and $0<\lambda<3/\sqrt{2}$, we show that the maximum multiplicity that $\lambda$ can appear as the second largest eigenvalue of a connected graph with maximum degree at most $\Delta$ is $O_{\Delta,\lambda}(1)$. This result answers a question due to Jiang, Tidor, Yao, Zhang and Zhao [Question 6.4, Ann. of Math. (2) 194 (2021), no. 3, 729-743] in the case of $0<\lambda<3/\sqrt{2}$, and consequently leads to improvements in their results on equiangular lines. Our proof is based on the concept of nodal domains of eigenfunctions. Indeed, we establish a multiplicity estimate in terms of maximum degree and cyclomatic number of the graph, via a novel construction of eigenfunctions with large number of nodal domains.

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Chuanyuan Ge, Shiping Liu. 2025-07-13. Equiangular lines via nodal domains. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09511

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