On the Energy and Nullity of Non-Uniform Path and Cycle Semigraphs
نویسندگان
1 Department of Mathematics, Mar Athanasius College of Engineering (Autonomous), Kothamangalam, Ernakulam, 686666, Kerala, India
2 Department of Mathematics, Mar Athanasius College (Autonomous), Kothamangalam, Ernakulam, 686666, Kerala, India
doi
10.22052/ijmc.2025.257303.2041چکیده
Graph energy, originating in H\"uckel molecular orbital theory, remains central to mathematical chemistry. Motivated by heterogeneous linear and cyclic molecular structures, we study non-uniform path and cycle semigraphs, where original edges are subdivided by $n_i \ge 1$ middle vertices. We show the adjacency matrix decomposes into a symmetric tridiagonal core, whose spectrum comprises all non-zero eigenvalues, plus zero rows from middle vertices. For paths, a continuant recurrence for the characteristic polynomial and parity arguments yield spectral symmetry and precise nullity conditions. For cycles, a wraparound determinant formula characterizes when the spectrum is symmetric about zero and provides exact criteria for the presence and multiplicity of specific zero eigenvalues. Consequently, the energy of each semigraph equals the energy of its core matrix, yielding clean expressions for energy and nullity from the $\{n_i\}$ parameters. Uniform cases arise as immediate corollaries and are consistent with spectral invariants in chemically inspired models.