In this paper we study the existence of homomorphisms @math using semidefinite programming. Specifically, we use the vector chromatic number of a graph, defined as the smallest real number @math for which there exists an assignment of unit vectors @math to its vertices such that @math when @math . Our approach allows to reprove, without using the Erdős-Ko-Rado Theorem, that for @math the Kneser graph @math and the @math -Kneser graph @math are cores, and furthermore, that for @math there exists a homomorphism @math if and only if @math divides @math . In terms of new applications, we show that the even-weight component of the distance @math -graph of the @math -cube @math is a core and also, that non-bipartite Taylor graphs are cores. Additionally, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of homomorphisms @math when @math . Lastly, we show that if a 2-walk-regular graph (which is non-bipartite and not complete multipartite) has a unique optimal vector coloring, it is a core. Based on this sufficient condition we conducted a computational study on Ted Spence's list of strongly regular graphs and found that at least 84 are cores.
@cite_15: An embedding (i p_i R ^d ) of the vertices of a graph G is called universally completable if the following holds: For any other embedding (i q_i R ^ k ) satisfying (q_i^ T q_j = p_i^ T p_j ) for (i = j ) and i adjacent to j, there exists an isometry mapping (q_i ) to (p_i ) for all ( i V(G) ). The notion of universal completability was introduced recently due to its relevance to the positive semidefinite matrix completion problem. In this work we focus on graph embeddings constructed using the eigenvectors of the least eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of G, which we call least eigenvalue frameworks. We identify two necessary and sufficient conditions for such frameworks to be universally completable. Our conditions also allow us to give algorithms for determining whether a least eigenvalue framework is universally completable. Furthermore, our computations for Cayley graphs on ( Z _2^n (n 5) ) show that almost all of these graphs have universally completable least eigenvalue frameworks. In the second part of this work we study uniquely vector colorable (UVC) graphs, i.e., graphs for which the semidefinite program corresponding to the Lovasz theta number (of the complementary graph) admits a unique optimal solution. We identify a sufficient condition for showing that a graph is UVC based on the universal completability of an associated framework. This allows us to prove that Kneser and q-Kneser graphs are UVC. Lastly, we show that least eigenvalue frameworks of 1-walk-regular graphs always provide optimal vector colorings and furthermore, we are able to characterize all optimal vector colorings of such graphs. In particular, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a 1-walk-regular graph to be uniquely vector colorable.
Standard examples of 1-walk-regular graphs are the @math and their @math -analogs, the @math . These graphs were shown to be UVC in @cite_15 , and for completeness we explicitly give their vector colorings in . We also establish another family of UVC graphs @math (Theorem ). These graphs are constructed from the @math -distance graphs of the @math -cube.