Discrete diffusion-type equation on regular graphs and its applications

Abstract: We derive an explicit formula for the fundamental solution $K_{T_{q+1}}(x,x_{0};t)$ to the discrete-time diffusion equation on the $(q+1)$-regular tree $T_{q+1}$ in terms of the discrete $I$-Bessel function. We then use the formula to derive an explicit expression for the fundamental solution $K_{X}(x,x_{0};t)$ to the discrete-time diffusion equation on any $(q+1)$-regular graph $X$. Going further, we develop three applications. The first one is to derive a general trace formula that relates the spectral data on $X$ to its topological data. Though we emphasize the results in the case when $X$ is finite, our method also applies when $X$ has a countably infinite number of vertices. As a second application, we obtain a closed-form expression for the return time probability distribution of the uniform random walk on any $(q+1)$-regular graph. The expression is obtained by relating $K_{X}(x,x_{0};t)$ to the uniform random walk on a $(q+1)$-regular graph. We then show that if ${X_{h}}$ is a sequence of $(q+1)$-regular graphs whose number of vertices goes to infinity and which satisfies a certain natural geometric condition, then the limit of the return time probability distributions from ${X_{h}}$ is equal to the return time probability distribution on the tree $T_{q+1}$. As a third application, we derive formulas which express the number of distinct closed irreducible walks without tails on a finite graph $X$ in terms of moments of the spectrum of its adjacency matrix.