Maximal graphs with respect to rank

Abstract

The rank of a graph is defined to be the rank of its adjacency matrix. A graph is called reduced if it has no isolated vertices and no two vertices with the same set of neighbors. A reduced graph G is said to be maximal if any reduced graph containing G as a proper induced subgraph has a higher rank. In this paper, we present (1) a characterization of maximal trees (that is induced trees which are not a proper subtree of a reduced tree with the same rank);(2) a construction of two new families of maximal graphs; (3) an enumeration of all maximal graphs with rank up to 9.