Representation Theory in Cayley Graphs

Daniel Levine December 20, 2012

The purpose of this paper is to try to understand how Fourier analysis over nite abelian groups applies to graph theory in a simple example concerning Cayley Graphs. A subeld of graph theory called spectral graph theory studies graphs by the the set of eigenvalues, called the spectrum, of corresponding adjacency matrices. We will dene the necessary terms as we move forward, but for now we will see what the end product should be. Consider the following Cayley graph of Z4 with respect to {1, 3}: 0 1

3 We want to nd the eigenvalues of 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0

2 the adjacency matrix 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0

of the graph in order to analyze the graph the way a graph theorist would. However, it is not the purpose of this paper to get into the techniques of graph theory. We will only try to get the eigenvalues of this matrix by the following theorem: Theorem. Let G = {g1 , . . . , gn } be an abelian group and S G a symmetric set. Let 1 , . . . , n be the irreducible characters of G and let A be the adjacency matrix of the Cayley graph of G with respect to S (using this ordering 1

for the elements of G). Then: 1. The eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix A are the real numbers i =
s S

i (s)

where 1 i n; 2. The corresponding orthonormal basis of eigenvectors is given by the vectors {vq , . . . , vn } where vi = (i (g1 ), . . . , i (gn ))T . With that in mind, let us begin our treatment with some basic representation theory and then move to familiarizing ourselves with some basic properties of Fourier analysis of nite groups. Denition. A homomorphism : G GL(V ) for a nite group G and nite-dimensional non-zero vector space V is called a representation of G . Dene the degree of as the dimension of V . If the only G-invariant subspaces of V are {0} and V , then we say is an irreducible representation. An example of a trivial representation of a group G is : G C dened as (g ) = 1 for all g G . Another interesting fact is that any degree one representation : G C is irreducible since C is no proper nonzero subspaces. Denition. Two representations : G GL(V ) and : G GL(W ) are equivalent if there exists and isomorphism T : V W such that (g ) = T (g )T 1 for all g G, written as . Or we can say there exists an isomorphism T such that the follow diagram commutes. (g ) V T W (g ) V T W

Denition. Let V be an inner product space, and : G GL(V ) be a representation. Then is unitary if (g ) is unitary for all g G, i.e. (g )(g )t = I , where I is the identity matrix in V . The case that appeals to us is the case where GL(V ) = C . We see that z C is unitary if zz = 1. It is immediate that any one-dimensional unitary representation must be a homomorphism : G S 1 . This little note will be somewhat useful later on. Proposition. Every representation of a nite group is equivalent to a unitary representation. Proof. (Sketch) Let : G GL(V ) be a representation and dimV = n. Choose a basis for V, and let T : V Cn be an isomorphism with respect to . Dene an equivalent representation (show this) : G GLn (C), (g ) = T (g )T 1 . Take the standard inner product , on Cn , and dene a new inner product (, ) on Cn as (v, w) =
g G

(g )v, (g )w

Show this is an inner product and that is unitary with respect to this inner product. Now, let us look at some basic character theory. Denition. Let be dened as above. The character : G C of is dened as (g ) = Tr((g )) . The character of an irreducible representation is called an irreducible character. From the denition above, it is easy to see that for degree 1 representations, (g ) = (g ) for all g G. Now we turn our attention to some algebraic properties of characters. Proposition. If and are equivalent representations, then = . Proof. Let T be an invertible matrix such that (g ) = T (g )T 1 , for all g G. Then (g ) = T r((g )) = T r(T (g )T 1 ) = T r(T 1 T (g )) = T r((g )) = (g )

Proposition. Let be a representation of G. Then (g ) = (hgh1 ) for all g, h G . Proof. Note that is a homomorphism and that T r(AB ) = T r(BA). (hgh1 ) = T r((hgh1 ) = T r((h)(g )(h)1 ) = T r((h)1 (h)(g )) = T r((g )) = (g )

Denition. Let G be a group. Dene an inner product space L(G) = CG = {f | f : G C} with addition and scalar multiplication dened by (f1 + f2 )(g ) = f1 (g ) + f2 (g ) (cf )(g ) = c f (g ) and with the inner product dened by f1 , f2 = 1 f1 (g )f2 (g ) |G| gG

L(G) satises all the properties of a group algebra with respect to G. Denition. A function f : G C is a class function if f is constant on conjugacy classes, i.e. if f (g ) = f (hgh1 ) for all g, h G. The space of class functions is denoted by Z (L(G)). It is an easy check to see that Z (L(G)) is a subspace of L(G). Theorem. The set of irreducible characters 1 , . . . , s of a nite group G form an orthonormal basis for Z (L(G)), where s is the amount of equivalence classes of L(G). We omit the proof, but the statement is crucial nonetheless. Now we move on to Fourier analysis on nite groups. Denition. Let f : G C . Dene the Fourier transform f : G C of f by f (gi ) = n i , f =
g G

i (g )f (g )

Proposition. Fourier inversion 1 f= n

n

f (gi )i
i=1

This follows directly from the denition of the Fourier transform. Now we dene convolution. Denition. Let G be a nite group and a, b L(G). The convolution a b : G C is dened by a b(x) =
y G

a(xy 1 )b(y ).

Proposition. For nite abelian groups G, the Fourier transform satises a b = a b. Proof. By expansion and algebra. Dene the following delta function g associated with each g G by g (x) = 1 if x = g 0 otherwise

It is a simple check to see that L(G) is a unital ring with respect to point wise addition, convolution as multiplication, and 1 as the multiplicative identity. Furthermore, Z (L(G)) is the center of L(G) with this notion of convolution. Before moving forward, we state the following proposition. Proposition. A nite group G is abelian if and only if it has |G| equivalence classes of irreducible representations. We omit the proof here, although simple, since its motivation leads us too far astray. But a simple consequence of this fact is that there are only |G| distinct irreducible characters, since we showed equivalent representations have the same character, which makes working with nite abelian groups particularly easy. When working with abelian groups, L(G) = Z (L(G)), so the the irreducible characters 1 , . . . , n , where n = |G| form an orthonormal basis for L(G). 5

Note. If j is an irreducible character of G, then j (gi ) = n i , j = n i=j 0 otherwise

by orthogonality of irreducible characters. Thus j = ngj . We now have the necessary tools to prove the main theorem of this paper. All that remains are some denitions in graph theory and a lemma. Denition. A graph consists of a set V of vertices and a set E of unordered pairs of elements of V , called edges. Let be a graph with V = {v1 , . . . , vn } as its set of vertices with edge set E . The adjacency matrix A = (aij ) is dened by 1 {vi , vj } E aij = 0 otherwise. Denition. A symmetric subset S G of a nite group G satisfying i) 1 / S and ii) s S s1 S . A Cayley graph G with respect to S is the graph with vertex set G and with an edge {g, h} connecting vertices g and h if gh1 S , or equivalently hg 1 S . Now the graph and adjacency matrix shown before should make sense to the reader. 0 1

0 1 0 1

1 0 1 0

0 1 0 1

1 0 1 0

Lemma. Let G = {g1 , . . . , gn } be an abelian group with irreducible characters 1 , . . . , n and let a L(G). Dene the convolution operator F : L(G) L(G) by F (b) = a b. The j is an eigenvector of F with eigenvalue a(gj ) for all 1 j n. Consequently, F is a diagonalizable operator. Proof. We stated before (without proof) L(G) is a ring with respect to convolution. By distributivity, F is linear. Using our note from above and that convution is the same as multiplication, we see that a j = a j = a ngj . Furthermore, by denition of the function a(gi )ngj (gi ) = a(gj )n i = j 0 else.

Thus, a ngj = a(gj )nhj . Now, by Fourier inversion 1 F (j ) = a j = n

n n

a j (gi )i =
i=1 i=1

a(gi )gj (gi )i = a(gj )j

by orthogonality relations. So j is an eigenvector with eigenvalue a(gj ). Since 1 , . . . , n form an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors for F, it follows that F is diagonalizable. Finally, we can prove the main theorem: Theorem. Let G = {g1 , . . . , gn } be an abelian group and S G a symmetric set. Let 1 , . . . , n be the irreducible characters of G and let A be the adjacency matrix of the Cayley graph of G with respect to S (using this ordering for the elements of G). Then: 1. The eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix A are the real numbers i =
s S

i (s)

where 1 i n; 2. The corresponding orthonormal basis of eigenvectors is given by the vectors {vq , . . . , vn } where vi = (i (g1 ), . . . , i (gn ))T . 7

Proof. Dene the characteristic function of S as S (x) =

sS

s (x) =

1 xS 0 otherwise.

Let F be the convolution operation dened in the lemma with a = S . So F (b) = S b. By the lemma, the i are the eigenvectors of F with eigenvalue S (gi ). Computing S (gi ) we get S (gi ) = n i , S =
x G

i (x)S (x) =
xS

i (x).

Make a change of variable s = x1 , since symmetric sets contain all inverses of its elements. Recall that characters are degree one representations, and all degree one representations are unitary. So i (x1 ) = i (x), and we have i (x) =
x S sS

i (s) = i .

If is the basis {g1 , . . . , gn } for L(G), the matrix [F ] of F with respect to has eigenvalues 1 , . . . , n and eigenvectors v1 , . . . , vn , where the vi are dened as in the statement of the theorem. The orthonormality of the eigenvectors follow from the orthonormality or the irreducible characters. Now we show A = [F ] to verify that A has these properties. First, we claim g h (x) = gh (x), for all g, h, x G. g h (x) =
y G

g (xy 1 )h (y ) = g h(x)

since the only non zero term is when y = h and g = xy 1 = xh1 , which means x = gh. Now that we have this property, we can see that F (gj ) = S gj =
sS

s gj =
s S

sgj .

By denition on matrix coordinates in a basis, ([F ] )ij is just the coecient of basis element gi in F (gj ). So ([F ] )ij = = 1 gi = sgj for some s S 0 otherwise
1 1 gi gj S 0 otherwise

= Aij . 8

Last, we must verify that i is real. By the unitary property of i , if s S , then either s = s1 , so i (s) = i (s1 ) = i (s) is real, or s = s1 and i (s) + i (s1 ) = i (s) + i (s) is real in the summation. Now we can easily nd the eigenvalues of cyclic groups Zn . Dene the 2iks characters of Zn as k (s) = e n , i.e. the roots of unity z n = 1. Then, by the theorem, our eigenvalues are k =
s S

2iks n

For our example with G = Z4 and S = {1, 3}, our eigenvalues are k = e k = {0, 1, 2, 3}.
2ik 4

+e

2i3k 4

References
[1] B. Steinberg, Representation Theory of Finite Groups, Springer, NY, 2009.