Improved lower bounds on the extrema of eigenvalues of graphs

In this note, we improve the lower bounds for the maximum size of the $k$th largest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of a graph for several values of $k$. In particular, we show that closed blowups of the icosahedral graph improve the lower bound for the maximum size of the fourth largest eigenvalue of a graph, answering a question of Nikiforov.