A signed graph is a pair $(G,Sigma)$, where $G=(V,E)$ is a graph (in which parallel edges and loops are permitted) with $V={1,ldots,n}$ and $Sigmasubseteq E$. The edges in $Sigma$ are called odd edges and the other edges of $E$ even. By $S(G,Sigma)$
we denote the set of all symmetric $ntimes n$ real matrices $A=[a_{i,j}]$ such that if $a_{i,j} < 0$, then there must be an even edge connecting $i$ and $j$; if $a_{i,j} > 0$, then there must be an odd edge connecting $i$ and $j$; and if $a_{i,j} = 0$, then either there must be an odd edge and an even edge connecting $i$ and $j$, or there are no edges connecting $i$ and $j$. (Here we allow $i=j$.) For a symmetric real matrix $A$, the partial inertia of $A$ is the pair $(p,q)$, where $p$ and $q$ are the number of positive and negative eigenvalues of $A$, respectively. If $(G,Sigma)$ is a signed graph, we define the emph{inertia set} of $(G,Sigma)$ as the set of the partial inertias of all matrices $A in S(G,Sigma)$. In this paper, we present a formula that allows us to obtain the minimal elements of the inertia set of $(G,Sigma)$ in case $(G,Sigma)$ has a $1$-separation using the inertia sets of certain signed graphs associated to the $1$-separation.
Let $mathbb{F}$ be an infinite field with characteristic different from two. For a graph $G=(V,E)$ with $V={1,...,n}$, let $S(G;mathbb{F})$ be the set of all symmetric $ntimes n$ matrices $A=[a_{i,j}]$ over $mathbb{F}$ with $a_{i,j} ot=0$, $i ot=j$ i
f and only if $ijin E$. We show that if $G$ is the complement of a partial $k$-tree and $mgeq k+2$, then for all nonsingular symmetric $mtimes m$ matrices $K$ over $mathbb{F}$, there exists an $mtimes n$ matrix $U$ such that $U^T K Uin S(G;mathbb{F})$. As a corollary we obtain that, if $k+2leq mleq n$ and $G$ is the complement of a partial $k$-tree, then for any two nonnegative integers $p$ and $q$ with $p+q=m$, there exists a matrix in $S(G;reals)$ with $p$ positive and $q$ negative eigenvalues.
