In
mathematics and
computer science, an
adjacency matrix (or one-hop connectivity matrix) is a means of representing which vertices of a
graph are adjacent to which other vertices. Another matrix representation for a graph is the
incidence matrix.
Specifically, the adjacency matrix of a
finite graph
G on
n vertices is the
n × n matrix where the nondiagonal entry
aij is the number of edges from vertex
i to vertex
j, and the diagonal entry
aii, depending on the convention, is either once or twice the number of edges (loops) from vertex
i to itself. Undirected graphs often use the former convention of counting loops twice, whereas directed graphs typically use the latter convention. There exists a unique adjacency matrix for each graph (up to permuting rows and columns), and it is not the adjacency matrix of any other graph. In the special case of a finite
simple graph, the adjacency matrix is a
(0,1)-matrix with zeros on its diagonal. If the graph is undirected, the adjacency matrix is
symmetric.
The relationship between a graph and the
eigenvalues and
eigenvectors of its adjacency matrix is studied in
spectral graph theory.
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