Scaffolds: A graph-theoretic tool for tensor computations related to Bose-Mesner algebras

Abstract

We introduce a pictorial notation for certain tensors arising in the study of association schemes, based on earlier ideas of Terwilliger, Neumaier and Jaeger. These tensors, which we call “scaffolds”, obey a simple set of rules which generalize common linear-algebraic operations such as trace, matrix product and entrywise product. We first study an elementary set of “moves” on scaffolds and illustrate their use in combinatorics. Next we re-visit results of Dickie, Suzuki and Terwilliger. The main new results deal with the relationships among vector spaces of scaffolds with edge weights chosen from a fixed coherent algebra and various underlying diagrams. As one consequence, we provide simple descriptions of the Terwilliger algebras of triply regular and dually triply regular association schemes. We finish with a conjecture connecting the duality of Bose-Mesner algebras to the graph-theoretic duality of circular planar graphs.