Dual concepts of almost distance-regularity and the spectral excess theorem

Generally speaking, `almost distance-regular' graphs share some, but not necessarily all, of the regularity properties that characterize distance-regular graphs. In this paper we propose two new dual concepts of almost distance-regularity, thus giving a better understanding of the properties of distance-regular graphs. More precisely, we characterize $m$-partially distance-regular graphs and $j$-punctually eigenspace distance-regular graphs by using their spectra. Our results can also be seen as a generalization of the so-called spectral excess theorem for distance-regular graphs, and they lead to a dual version of it.