Ma, Yang, and Li's signature cycle-count conjecture

Let GG be a graph with signature s(G)s(G), where the signature is the difference between the numbers of positive and negative eigenvalues of its adjacency matrix. Let c3(G)c_3(G) and c5(G)c_5(G) denote the numbers of cycles in GG whose lengths are congruent to 33 and 11 modulo 44, respectively. Ma–Yang–Li conjecture.

c3(G)s(G)c5(G).-c_3(G)\leq s(G)\leq c_5(G).

The conjecture bounds the spectral signature using counts of cycles in two congruence classes modulo 44. The paper attributes it to Ma, Yang, and Li and gives no resolution.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Saieed Akbari, Clive Elphick, Hitesh Kumar, Shivaramakrishna Pragada and Quanyu Tang, “A new conjecture on the inertia of graphs”, arXiv:2508.01163 (2025).

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