A characterization of Q-polynomial distance-regular graphs

Let Γ denote a distance-regular graph with diameter D3. Let θ denote a nontrivial eigenvalue of Γ and let denote the corresponding dual eigenvalue sequence. In this paper we prove that Γ is Q-polynomial with respect to θ if and only if the following (i)–(iii) hold:

(i) There exist such that

(1)

(ii) There exist such that the intersection numbers a_i satisfy

for 0iD, where and are the scalars which satisfy Eq. (1) for i=0, i=D, respectively.

(iii) for 1iD.

Keywords: Distance-regular graph; Q-polynomial; Association scheme