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

Invasion percolation on the Poisson-weighted infinite tree

We study invasion percolation on Aldous' Poisson-weighted infinite tree, and derive two distinct Markovian representations of the resulting process. One of these is the $\sigma\to\infty$ limit of a representation discovered by Angel et al. [Ann. Appl. Probab. 36 (2008) 420-466]. We also introduce an exploration process of a randomly weighted Poisson incipient infinite cluster. The dynamics of the new process are much more straightforward to describe than those of invasion percolation, but it turns out that the two processes have extremely similar behavior. Finally, we introduce two new "stationary" representations of the Poisson incipient infinite cluster as random graphs on $\mathbb {Z}$ which are, in particular, factors of a homogeneous Poisson point process on the upper half-plane $\mathbb {R}\times[0,\infty)$.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AAP761 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Clique trees of infinite locally finite chordal graphs

We investigate clique trees of infinite locally finite chordal graphs. Our main contribution is a bijection between the set of clique trees and the product of local finite families of finite trees. Even more, the edges of a clique tree are in bijection with the edges of the corresponding collection of finite trees. This allows us to enumerate the clique trees of a chordal graph and extend various classic characterisations of clique trees to the infinite setting