Equiangular lines with a fixed angle

By Zilin Jiang, Jonathan Tidor, Yuan Yao, Shengtong Zhang, Yufei Zhao. Annals of Mathematics, 2019

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Solving a longstanding problem on equiangular lines, we determine, for each given fixed angle and in all sufficiently large dimensions, the maximum number of lines pairwise separated by the given angle. Fix $0 < \alpha < 1$. Let $N_\alpha(d)$ denote the maximum number of lines in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with pairwise common angle $\arccos \alpha$. Let $k$ denote the minimum number (if it exists) of vertices of a graph whose adjacency matrix has spectral radius exactly $(1-\alpha)/(2\alpha)$. If $k < \infty$, then $N_\alpha(d) = \lfloor k(d-1)/(k-1) \rfloor$ for all sufficiently large $d$, and otherwise $N_\alpha(d) = d + o(d)$. In particular, $N_{1/(2k-1)}(d) = \lfloor k(d-1)/(k-1) \rfloor$ for every integer $k\geq 2$ and all sufficiently large $d$. A key ingredient is a new result in spectral graph theory: the adjacency matrix of a connected bounded degree graph has sublinear second eigenvalue multiplicity.

Subfields: Applied Mathematics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Geometry and Topology

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