We study the problem of compressing a weighted graph $G$ on $n$ vertices, building a "sketch" $H$ of $G$, so that given any vector $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$, the value $x^T L_G x$ can be approximated up to a multiplicative $1+��$ factor from only $H$ and $x$, where $L_G$ denotes the Laplacian of $G$. One solution to this problem is to build a spectral sparsifier $H$ of $G$, which, using the result of Batson, Spielman, and Srivastava, consists of $O(n ��^{-2})$ reweighted edges of $G$ and has the property that simultaneously for all $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$, $x^T L_H x = (1 \pm ��) x^T L_G x$. The $O(n ��^{-2})$ bound is optimal for spectral sparsifiers. We show that if one is interested in only preserving the value of $x^T L_G x$ for a {\it fixed} $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$ (specified at query time) with high probability, then there is a sketch $H$ using only $\tilde{O}(n ��^{-1.6})$ bits of space. This is the first data structure achieving a sub-quadratic dependence on $��$. Our work builds upon recent work of Andoni, Krauthgamer, and Woodruff who showed that $\tilde{O}(n ��^{-1})$ bits of space is possible for preserving a fixed {\it cut query} (i.e., $x\in \{0,1\}^n$) with high probability; here we show that even for a general query vector $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$, a sub-quadratic dependence on $��$ is possible. Our result for Laplacians is in sharp contrast to sketches for general $n \times n$ positive semidefinite matrices $A$ with $O(\log n)$ bit entries, for which even to preserve the value of $x^T A x$ for a fixed $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$ (specified at query time) up to a $1+��$ factor with constant probability, we show an $��(n ��^{-2})$ lower bound.

18 pages