The Hermitian adjacency matrix of a mixed graph with no loops and at most one edge
or arc between each pair of vertices
has entries
for an undirected edge,
for an arc
,
for an arc
, and
otherwise. Here
is the imaginary unit. This
convention makes
a Hermitian matrix, so
all its eigenvalues are real
(Song and Lin 2026, pp. 3-4).
For an undirected graph, is the ordinary adjacency
matrix. A single arc
instead gives
Its eigenvalues are and
. For real
, the matrix exponential
is a unitary matrix used to define perfect
state transfer on mixed graphs.