Extremal spectral properties of random graphs
Phys. Rev. E 114, 024310 – Published 18 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7yff-fsjy
Abstract
In this work we study statistical properties of the extreme eigenstates of the randomly weighted adjacency matrices of random graphs. We focus on two random graph models: Erdős-Rényi graphs and random geometric graphs. Indeed, the adjacency matrices of both graph models are diluted versions of the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE) of random-matrix theory such that a transition from the Poisson ensemble (PE) to the GOE is observed by increasing the graph average degree . First, we write expressions for the spectral density in terms of for the regimes below and above the percolation threshold. Then we show that the distributions of the largest and second-largest eigenvalues approach the Tracy-Widom distribution of type 1 for , while . Additionally, we demonstrate that the distributions of the normalized distance between and , the distribution of the ratio between higher consecutive eigenvalue spacings, and the distributions of the inverse participation ratios of the extreme eigenstates display a clear PE-to-GOE transition as a function of . We conclude that any of these distributions can be effectively used to probe the delocalization transition of the graph models without the need of the full spectrum.