Aligning the Spectrum: Hybrid Graph Pre-training and Prompt Tuning across Homophily and Heterophily

Abstract

Graph ``pre-training and prompt-tuning'' aligns downstream tasks with pre-trained objectives to enable efficient knowledge transfer under limited supervision. However, current methods typically rely on single-filter backbones (e.g., low-pass), whereas real-world graphs exhibit inherent spectral diversity. Our theoretical \textit{Spectral Specificity} principle reveals that effective knowledge transfer requires alignment between pre-trained spectral filters and the intrinsic spectrum of downstream graphs. This identifies two fundamental limitations: (1) Knowledge Bottleneck: single-filter models suffer from irreversible information loss by suppressing signals from other frequency bands (e.g., high-frequency); (2) Utilization Bottleneck: spectral mismatches between pre-trained filters and downstream spectra lead to significant underutilization of pre-trained knowledge. To bridge this gap, we propose HS-GPPT. We utilize a hybrid spectral backbone to construct an abundant knowledge basis. Crucially, we introduce Spectral-Aligned Prompt Tuning to actively align the downstream graph's spectrum with diverse pre-trained filters, facilitating comprehensive knowledge utilization across both homophily and heterophily. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness under both transductive and inductive learning settings.