Partitions and Coverings of Trees by Bounded-Degree Subtrees

This paper addresses the following questions for a given tree $T$ and integer $d\geq2$: (1) What is the minimum number of degree-$d$ subtrees that partition $E(T)$? (2) What is the minimum number of degree-$d$ subtrees that cover $E(T)$? We answer the first question by providing an explicit formula for the minimum number of subtrees, and we describe a linear time algorithm that finds the corresponding partition. For the second question, we present a polynomial time algorithm that computes a minimum covering. We then establish a tight bound on the number of subtrees in coverings of trees with given maximum degree and pathwidth. Our results show that pathwidth is the right parameter to consider when studying coverings of trees by degree-3 subtrees. We briefly consider coverings of general graphs by connected subgraphs of bounded degree

Proximity Drawings of High-Degree Trees

A drawing of a given (abstract) tree that is a minimum spanning tree of the vertex set is considered aesthetically pleasing. However, such a drawing can only exist if the tree has maximum degree at most 6. What can be said for trees of higher degree? We approach this question by supposing that a partition or covering of the tree by subtrees of bounded degree is given. Then we show that if the partition or covering satisfies some natural properties, then there is a drawing of the entire tree such that each of the given subtrees is drawn as a minimum spanning tree of its vertex set

The number of maximum matchings in a tree

We determine upper and lower bounds for the number of maximum matchings (i.e., matchings of maximum cardinality) $m(T)$ of a tree $T$ of given order. While the trees that attain the lower bound are easily characterised, the trees with largest number of maximum matchings show a very subtle structure. We give a complete characterisation of these trees and derive that the number of maximum matchings in a tree of order $n$ is at most $O(1.391664^n)$ (the precise constant being an algebraic number of degree 14). As a corollary, we improve on a recent result by G\'orska and Skupie\'n on the number of maximal matchings (maximal with respect to set inclusion).Comment: 38 page

An extension of Tamari lattices

For any finite path $v$ on the square grid consisting of north and east unit steps, starting at (0,0), we construct a poset Tam$(v)$ that consists of all the paths weakly above $v$ with the same number of north and east steps as $v$. For particular choices of $v$, we recover the traditional Tamari lattice and the $m$-Tamari lattice. Let $\overleftarrow{v}$ be the path obtained from $v$ by reading the unit steps of $v$ in reverse order, replacing the east steps by north steps and vice versa. We show that the poset Tam$(v)$ is isomorphic to the dual of the poset Tam$(\overleftarrow{v})$. We do so by showing bijectively that the poset Tam$(v)$ is isomorphic to the poset based on rotation of full binary trees with the fixed canopy $v$, from which the duality follows easily. This also shows that Tam$(v)$ is a lattice for any path $v$. We also obtain as a corollary of this bijection that the usual Tamari lattice, based on Dyck paths of height $n$, is a partition of the (smaller) lattices Tam$(v)$, where the $v$ are all the paths on the square grid that consist of $n-1$ unit steps. We explain possible connections between the poset Tam$(v)$ and (the combinatorics of) the generalized diagonal coinvariant spaces of the symmetric group.Comment: 18 page