This is an expository survey of the uses of matrices in the theory of simple graphs with signed edges. A signed simple graph is a graph, without loops or parallel edges, in which every edge has been declared positive or negative. For many purposes the most significant thing about a signed graph is not the actual edge signs, but the sign of each circle (or ‘cycle’ or ’circuit’), which is the pro...

We prove that a connected cographic matroid of a graph G is the bias matroid of a signed graph Σ iff G imbeds in the projective plane. In the case that G is nonplanar, we also show that Σ must be the projective-planar dual signed graph of an actual imbedding of G in the projective plane. As a corollary we get that, if G1, . . . , G29 denote the 29 nonseparable forbidden minors for projective-pl...

The base of a signed digraph S is the minimum number k such that for any vertices u, v of S, there is a pair of walks of length k from u to v with different signs. Let K be a signed complete graph of order n, which is a signed digraph obtained by assigning +1 or −1 to each arc of the n-th order complete graph Kn considered as a digraph. In this paper we show that for n ≥ 3 the base of a primiti...

A theta graph is a homeomorph of K 2;3. In an embedded planar graph the local rotation at one degree-three vertex of a theta graph determines the local rotation at the other degree-three vertex. Using this observation, we give a characterization of planar graphs in terms of balance in an associated signed graph whose vertices are K 1;3 sub-graphs and whose edges correspond to theta graphs.

A signed graph (G,Σ) is an undirected graph G together with an assignment of signs (positive or negative) to all its edges, where Σ denotes the set of negative edges. Two signatures are said to be equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by a sequence of resignings (i.e. switching the sign of all edges incident to a given vertex). Extending the notion of usual graph homomorphisms, homom...

We define a signed embedding of a signed graph into real projective space to be an embedding such that an embedded cycle is 0-homologous if and only if it is balanced. We characterize signed graphs that have a linkless signed embedding. In particular, we exhibit 46 graphs that form the complete minor-minimal set of signed graphs that contain a nonsplit link for every signed embedding. With one ...

We prove inequalities between the densities of various bipartite subgraphs in signed graphs. One of the main inequalities is that the density of any bipartite graph with girth 2r cannot exceed the density of the 2r-cycle. This study is motivated by the Simonovits–Sidorenko conjecture, which states that the density of a bipartite graph F with m edges in any graph G is at least the m-th power of ...

In this paper, we established a connection between the Laplacian eigenvalues of a signed graph and those of a mixed graph, gave a new upper bound for the largest Laplacian eigenvalue of a signed graph and characterized the extremal graph whose largest Laplacian eigenvalue achieved the upper bound. In addition, an example showed that the upper bound is the best in known upper bounds for some cases.