Maximum spectral radius of outerplanar 3-uniform hypergraphs

Abstract: In this paper, we study the maximum spectral radius of outerplanar $3$-uniform hypergraphs. Given a hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$, the shadow of $\mathcal{H}$ is a graph $G$ with $V(G)= V(\mathcal{H})$ and $E(G) = {uv: uv \in h \textrm{ for some } h\in E(\mathcal{H})}$. A graph is \textit{outerplanar} if it can be embedded in the plane such that all its vertices lie on the outer face. A $3$-uniform hypergraph $\mathcal{H}$ is called \textit{outerplanar} if its shadow has an outerplanar embedding such that every hyperedge of $\mathcal{H}$ is the vertex set of an interior triangular face of the shadow. Cvetkovi\'c and Rowlinson conjectured in 1990 that among all outerplanar graphs on $n$ vertices, the graph $K_1+ P_{n-1}$ attains the maximum spectral radius. We show a hypergraph analogue of the Cvetkovi\'c-Rowlinson conjecture. In particular, we show that for sufficiently large $n$, the $n$-vertex outerplanar $3$-uniform hypergraph of maximum spectral radius is the unique $3$-uniform hypergraph whose shadow is $K_1 + P_{n-1}$.