It is known that graphs on n vertices with minimum degree at least 3 have
spanning trees with at least n/4+2 leaves and that this can be improved to
(n+4)/3 for cubic graphs without the diamond K_4-e as a subgraph. We generalize
the second result by proving that every graph with minimum degree at least 3,
without diamonds and certain subgraphs called blossoms, has a spanning tree
with at least (n+4)/3 leaves, and generalize this further by allowing vertices
of lower degree. We show that it is necessary to exclude blossoms in order to
obtain a bound of the form n/3+c.
We use the new bound to obtain a simple FPT algorithm, which decides in
O(m)+O^*(6.75^k) time whether a graph of size m has a spanning tree with at
least k leaves. This improves the best known time complexity for MAX LEAF
SPANNING TREE.Comment: 25 pages, 27 Figure