The inverse inertia problem for the complements of partial k-trees

Abstract

Let F be an infinite field with characteristic not equal to two. For a graph G=(V,E) with V={1,…,n}, let S(G;F) be the set of all symmetric n×n matrices A=[ai,j] over F with ai,j≠0, i≠j if and only if ij∈E. We show that if G is the complement of a partial k-tree and m⩾k+2, then for all nonsingular symmetric m×m matrices K over F, there exists an m×n matrix U such that UTKU∈S(G;F). As a corollary we obtain that, if k+2⩽m⩽n and G is the complement of a partial k-tree, then for any two nonnegative integers p and q with p+q=m, there exists a matrix in S(G;R) with p positive and q negative eigenvalues.