Spectral correspondences for finite graphs without dead ends

Abstract

We compare the spectral properties of two kinds of linear operators characterizing the (classical) geodesic flow and its quantization on connected locally finite graphs without dead ends. The first kind are transfer operators acting on vector spaces associated with the set of non-backtracking paths in the graphs. The second kind of operators are averaging operators acting on vector spaces associated with the space of vertices of the graph. The choice of vector spaces reflects regularity properties. Our main results are correspondences between classical and quantum spectral objects as well as some automatic regularity properties for eigenfunctions of transfer operators.