Impediments to diffusion in quantum graphs: geometry-based upper bounds on the spectral gap

Abstract: We derive several upper bounds on the spectral gap of the Laplacian with standard or Dirichlet vertex conditions on compact metric graphs. In particular, we obtain estimates based on the length of a shortest cycle (girth), diameter, total length of the graph, as well as further metric quantities introduced here for the first time, such as the avoidance diameter. Using known results about Ramanujan graphs, a class of expander graphs, we also prove that some of these metric quantities, or combinations thereof, do not to deliver any spectral bounds with the correct scaling.