Distance spectra and distance energy of integral circulant graphs

The distance energy of a graph G is a recently developed energy-type invariant, defined as the sum of absolute values of the eigenvalues of the distance matrix of G. There was a vast research for the pairs and families of non-cospectral graphs having equal distance energy, and most of these constructions were based on the join of graphs. A graph is called circulant if it is Cayley graph on the circulant group, i.e. its adjacency matrix is circulant. A graph is called integral if all eigenvalues of its adjacency matrix are integers. Integral circulant graphs play an important role in modeling quantum spin networks supporting the perfect state transfer. In this paper, we characterize the distance spectra of integral circulant graphs and prove that these graphs have integral eigenvalues of distance matrix D. Furthermore, we calculate the distance spectra and distance energy of unitary Cayley graphs. In conclusion, we present two families of pairs (G₁,G₂) of integral circulant graphs with equal distance energy - in the first family G₁ is subgraph of G₂, while in the second family the diameter of both graphs is three.