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Jonathan L. Merzel

Publications and source records attributed to Jonathan L. Merzel.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

On divisibility relation graphs

For each positive integer $n$, we define the divisibility relation graph $D_n$ whose vertex set is the set of divisors of $n$, and in which two vertices are adjacent if one is a divisor of the other. This type of graph is a special case of graphs associated with a partial order, which have been widely studied in the literature. In this work, we determine various graph-theoretic invariants of divisibility relation graphs, such as their clique and independence numbers, and their planarity. We also discuss various spectral properties that are discovered by our numerical experiments.

math.CO↗
arXiv2024

Paint cost spectrum of perfect $k$-ary trees

We determine the paint cost spectrum for perfect $k$-ary trees. A coloring of the vertices of a graph $G$ with $d$ colors is said to be \emph{$d$-distinguishing} if only the trivial automorphism preserves the color classes. The smallest such $d$ is the distinguishing number of $G$ and is denoted $\mbox{dist}(G).$ The \emph{paint cost of $d$-distinguishing $G$}, denoted $\rho^d(G)$, is the minimum size of the complement of a color class over all $d$-distinguishing colorings. A subset $S$ of the vertices of $G$ is said to be a \emph{fixing set} for $G$ if the only automorphsim that fixes the vertices in $S$ pointwise is the trivial automorphism. The cardinality of a smallest fixing set is denoted $\mbox{fix}(G)$. In this paper, we explore the breaking of symmetry in perfect $k$-ary trees by investigating what we define as the \emph{paint cost spectrum} of a graph $G$: $(\mbox{dist}(G); \rho^{\mbox{dist}(G)}(G), \rho^{\mbox{dist}(G)+1}(G), \dots, \rho^{\mbox{fix}(G)+1}(G))$ and the \emph{paint cost ratio} of $G$, which is defined to be the fraction of paint costs in the paint cost spectrum equal to $\mbox{fix}(G)$. We determine both the paint cost spectrum and the paint cost ratio completely for perfect $k$-ary trees. We also prove a lemma that is of interest in its own right: given an $n$-tuple, $n \geq 2$ of distinct elements of an ordered abelian group and $1 \leq k \leq n! -1$, there exists a $k \times n$ row permuted matrix with distinct column sums.

math.CO↗
arXiv2023

Spectral perturbation by rank-$m$ matrices

Let $A$ and $B$ designate $n\times n$ matrices with coefficients in a field $F$. In this paper, we completely answer the following question: For $A$ fixed, what are the possible characteristic polynomials of $A+B$, where $B$ ranges over matrices of rank $\le m$?

math.SP↗
arXiv2022

On the joins of group rings

Given a collection $\{ G_i\}_{i=1}^d$ of finite groups and a ring $R$, we define a subring of the ring $M_n(R)$ ($n = \sum_{i=1}^d|G_i|)$ that encompasses all the individual group rings $R[G_i]$ along the diagonal blocks as $G_i$-circulant matrices. The precise definition of this ring was inspired by a construction in graph theory known as the joined union of graphs. We call this ring the join of group rings and denote it by $\mathcal{J}_{G_1,\dots, G_d}(R)$. In this paper, we present a systematic study of the algebraic structure of $\mathcal{J}_{G_1,\dots, G_d}(R)$. We show that it has a ring structure and characterize its center, group of units, and Jacobson radical. When $R=k$ is an algebraically closed field, we derive a formula for the number of irreducible modules over $\mathcal{J}_{G_1,\dots, G_d}(k)$. We also show how a blockwise extension of the Fourier transform provides both a generalization of the Circulant Diagonalization Theorem to joins of circulant matrices and an explicit isomorphism between the join algebra and its Wedderburn components.

math.RA↗