Which integer recurrence relations can be formulated as counting walks on a graph? - MathOverflow

Which integer recurrence relations can be formulated as counting walks on a graph?

2010-10-29T06:04:38Z

Observation: If we take the graph with two vertices, A and B, with a loop {A,A} and undirected edge {A,B}, then the number of closed walks $W_n$ of length $n \geq 1$ starting from A we get $W_1=1$ (counting AA), $W_2=2$ (counting AAA and ABA) and $W_n=W_{n-1}+W_{n-2}$, i.e. the Fibonacci numbers.

Question: Which types of recurrences can be realised as the number of closed walks from the origin of a graph?

More generally, which types of recurrences can be realised as the number of walks of some type in some graph?

If we can interpret a recurrence relation as the number of walks in a graph in some way, then might be able to use spectral theory to find formulas for the sequence. (see: Frank Harary and Allen J. Schwenk, The spectral approach to determining the number of walks in a graph. Pacific J. Math. Volume 80, Number 2 (1979), 443-449.)

Answer by Qiaochu Yuan for Which integer recurrence relations can be formulated as counting walks on a graph?

2010-10-29T08:12:07Z

Okay, so it's not quite a duplicate because I guess you're asking about initial conditions as well. The generating functions of the sequences $a_n$ which have this property are called $\mathbb{N}$-recognizable or $\mathbb{N}$-rational in the literature, and they are essentially (precisely?) the generating functions of word lengths in regular languages (star example: the look-and-say sequence). Not all rational functions with non-negative integer coefficients are $\mathbb{N}$-rational; see for example the counterexamples in these slides. These slides also seem relevant.

Stanley's Enumerative Combinatorics discusses some of these issues, in particular look at Section 4.7.

Answer by Aaron Meyerowitz for Which integer recurrence relations can be formulated as counting walks on a graph?

2010-10-30T04:23:38Z

If the motivation is to use spectral methods, then there is no need to interpret things as a graph. To count walks in a graph one gets a recurrence relation (given by the adjacency matrix) and proceeds using spectral methods. If $A$ is an $n \times n$ matrix and $x_0$ a column vector then setting $x_{m+1}=Ax_m$ leads to a system of $n$ first order linear recurrences in the $n$ positions. In most non-degenerate cases one can get a single $nth$ order recurrence for a particular entry (or linear combination of entries). Similarly for the $r,c$ entry of $A^m$, the trace and other linear combinations. Really one is studying the entries of $A^m$ since $A^mx_0=x_m$. In the case that one starts with an $nth$ order linear recurrence one just has a rather special kind of graph.

That said, if the entries of $A$ are non-negative integers then one can naturally interpret $A^m$ as counting length $m$ walks in a certain $n$-vertex directed graph with multiple edges and loops allowed. For an arbitrary $n \times n$ matrix with entries from a ring one could consider the entries as multiplicitive edge weights on the complete $n$-vertex directed graph (with loops) and $A^m$ as recording in position $u,v$ the total weight of the length $m$ paths starting at $u$ and ending at $v$.

But again, once one enjoys the fact that every linear recurrence can be interpreted as a weighted path enumeration problem, there is usual not much motivation to actually do so. I suppose that the initial conditions are not really accounted for in this sketch, but they don't really come into solving recurrence relations until the very end.