Spectral radius of graphs with given size and odd girth

Abstract: Let $\mathcal{G}(m,k)$ be the set of graphs with size $m$ and odd girth (the length of shortest odd cycle) $k$. In this paper, we determine the graph maximizing the spectral radius among $\mathcal{G}(m,k)$ when $m$ is odd. As byproducts, we show that, there is a number $\eta(m)>\sqrt{m-k+3}$ such that every non-bipartite graph $G$ with size $m$ and spectral radius $\rho\ge \eta(m)$ must contains an odd cycle of length less than $k$ unless $m$ is odd and $G\cong SK_{k,m}$, which is the graph obtained by subdividing an edge $k-2$ times of complete bipartite $K_{2,\frac{m-k+2}{2}}$. This result implies the main results of [Discrete Math. 345 (2022)] and \cite{li-peng}, and settles the conjecture in \cite{li-peng} as well.