Walks and Paths in Trees

Recently Csikv\'ari \cite{csik} proved a conjecture of Nikiforov concerning the number of closed walks on trees. Our aim is to extend his theorem to all walks. In addition, we give a simpler proof of Csikv\'ari's result and answer one of his questions in the negative. Finally we consider an analogous question for paths rather than walks

From elongated spanning trees to vicious random walks

Given a spanning forest on a large square lattice, we consider by combinatorial methods a correlation function of $k$ paths ($k$ is odd) along branches of trees or, equivalently, $k$ loop--erased random walks. Starting and ending points of the paths are grouped in a fashion a $k$--leg watermelon. For large distance $r$ between groups of starting and ending points, the ratio of the number of watermelon configurations to the total number of spanning trees behaves as $r^{-\nu} \log r$ with $\nu = (k^2-1)/2$. Considering the spanning forest stretched along the meridian of this watermelon, we see that the two--dimensional $k$--leg loop--erased watermelon exponent $\nu$ is converting into the scaling exponent for the reunion probability (at a given point) of $k$ (1+1)--dimensional vicious walkers, $\tilde{\nu} = k^2/2$. Also, we express the conjectures about the possible relation to integrable systems.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figure