Homomorphisms, representations and characteristic polynomials of digraphs

The existence of a homomorphism between two digraphs often implies many structural properties. We collect in this paper some characterizations of various digraph homomorphisms using matrix equations and fiber partitions. We also survey the relationship among the characteristic polynomials of a digraph and its divisors. This includes an introduction of the concept of branched coverings of digraphs, their voltage assignment representations, and a decomposition formula for the characteristic polynomial of a branched cover with branch index 1. Some open problems are included.