Essential self-adjointness of the graph-Laplacian

We study the operator theory associated with such infinite graphs G as occur in electrical networks, in fractals, in statistical mechanics, and even in internet search engines. Our emphasis is on the determination of spectral data for a natural Laplace operator associated with the graph in question. This operator Δ will depend not only on G but also on a prescribed positive real valued function c defined on the edges in G. In electrical network models, this function c will determine a conductance number for each edge. We show that the corresponding Laplace operator Δ is automatically essential self-adjoint. By this we mean that Δ is defined on the dense subspace D (of all the real valued functions on the set of vertices G0 with finite support) in the Hilbert space l2(G0). The conclusion is that the closure of the operator Δ is self-adjoint in l2(G0), and so, in particular, that it has a unique spectral resolution, determined by a projection valued measure on the Borel subsets of the infinite half-line. We prove that generically our graph Laplace operator Δ=Δc will have continuous spectrum. For a given infinite graph G with conductance function c, we set up a system of finite graphs with periodic boundary conditions such the finite spectra, for an ascending family of finite graphs, will have the Laplace operator for G as its limit.