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Stephan Wagner

Publications and source records attributed to Stephan Wagner.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2020

Extremal trees with fixed degree sequence

The greedy tree $\mathcal{G}(D)$ and the $\mathcal{M}$-tree $\mathcal{M}(D)$ are known to be extremal among trees with degree sequence $D$ with respect to various graph invariants. This paper provides a general theorem that covers a large family of invariants for which $\mathcal{G}(D)$ or $\mathcal{M}(D)$ is extremal. Many known results, for example on the Wiener index, the number of subtrees, the number of independent subsets and the number of matchings follow as corollaries, as do some new results on invariants such as the number of rooted spanning forests, the incidence energy and the solvability. We also extend our results on trees with fixed degree sequence $D$ to the set of trees whose degree sequence is majorised by a given sequence $D$, which also has a number of applications.

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arXiv2020

Further results on the inducibility of $d$-ary trees

A subset of leaves of a rooted tree induces a new tree in a natural way. The density of a tree $D$ inside a larger tree $T$ is the proportion of such leaf-induced subtrees in $T$ that are isomorphic to $D$ among all those with the same number of leaves as $D$. The inducibility of $D$ measures how large this density can be as the size of $T$ tends to infinity. In this paper, we explicitly determine the inducibility in some previously unknown cases and find general upper and lower bounds, in particular in the case where $D$ is balanced, i.e., when its branches have at least almost the same size. Moreover, we prove a result on the speed of convergence of the maximum density of $D$ in strictly $d$-ary trees $T$ (trees where every internal vertex has precisely $d$ children) of a given size $n$ to the inducibility as $n \to \infty$, which supports an open conjecture.

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arXiv2020

On the Collection of Fringe Subtrees in Random Binary Trees

A fringe subtree of a rooted tree is a subtree consisting of one of the nodes and all its descendants. In this paper, we are specifically interested in the number of non-isomorphic trees that appear in the collection of all fringe subtrees of a binary tree. This number is analysed under two different random models: uniformly random binary trees and random binary search trees. In the case of uniformly random binary trees, we show that the number of non-isomorphic fringe subtrees lies between $c_1n/\sqrt{\ln n}(1+o(1))$ and $c_2n/\sqrt{\ln n}(1+o(1))$ for two constants $c_1 \approx 1.0591261434$ and $c_2 \approx 1.0761505454$, both in expectation and with high probability, where $n$ denotes the size (number of leaves) of the uniformly random binary tree. A similar result is proven for random binary search trees, but the order of magnitude is $n/\ln n$ in this case. Our proof technique can also be used to strengthen known results on the number of distinct fringe subtrees (distinct in the sense of ordered trees). This quantity is of the same order of magnitude in both cases, but with slightly different constants in the upper and lower bounds.

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arXiv2019

On the Number of Increasing Trees with Label Repetitions

We study the asymptotic number of certain monotonically labeled increasing trees arising from a generalized evolution process. The main difference between the presented model and the classical model of binary increasing trees is that the same label can appear in distinct branches of the tree. In the course of the analysis we develop a method to extract asymptotic information on the coefficients of purely formal power series. The method is based on an approximate Borel transform (or, more generally, Mittag-Leffler transform) which enables us to quickly guess the exponential growth rate. With this guess the sequence is then rescaled and a singularity analysis of the generating function of the scaled counting sequence yields accurate asymptotics. The actual analysis is based on differential equations and a Tauberian argument. The counting problem for trees of size n exhibits interesting asymptotics involving powers of n with irrational exponents.

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arXiv2019

On the probability that a random subtree is spanning

We consider the quantity $P(G)$ associated with a graph $G$ that is defined as the probability that a randomly chosen subtree of $G$ is spanning. Motivated by conjectures due to Chin, Gordon, MacPhee and Vincent on the behaviour of this graph invariant depending on the edge density, we establish first that $P(G)$ is bounded below by a positive constant provided that the minimum degree is bounded below by a linear function in the number of vertices. Thereafter, the focus is shifted to the classical Erdős-Rényi random graph model $G(n,p)$. It is shown that $P(G)$ converges in probability to $e^{-1/(ep_{\infty})}$ if $p \to p_{\infty} > 0$ and to $0$ if $p \to 0$.

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arXiv2019

On the inducibility of small trees

The quantity that captures the asymptotic value of the maximum number of appearances of a given topological tree (a rooted tree with no vertices of outdegree $1$) $S$ with $k$ leaves in an arbitrary tree with sufficiently large number of leaves is called the inducibility of $S$. Its precise value is known only for some specific families of trees, most of them exhibiting a symmetrical configuration. In an attempt to answer a recent question posed by Czabarka, Székely, and the second author of this article, we provide bounds for the inducibility $J(A_5)$ of the $5$-leaf binary tree $A_5$ whose branches are a single leaf and the complete binary tree of height $2$. It was indicated before that $J(A_5)$ appears to be `close' to $1/4$. We can make this precise by showing that $0.24707\ldots \leq J(A_5) \leq 0.24745\ldots$. Furthermore, we also consider the problem of determining the inducibility of the tree $Q_4$, which is the only tree among $4$-leaf topological trees for which the inducibility is unknown.

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arXiv2019

On the centroid of increasing trees

A centroid node in a tree is a node for which the sum of the distances to all other nodes attains its minimum, or equivalently a node with the property that none of its branches contains more than half of the other nodes. We generalise some known results regarding the behaviour of centroid nodes in random recursive trees (due to Moon) to the class of very simple increasing trees, which also includes the families of plane-oriented and $d$-ary increasing trees. In particular, we derive limits of distributions and moments for the depth and label of the centroid node nearest to the root, as well as for the size of the subtree rooted at this node.

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arXiv2019

On the minimal Hamming weight of a multi-base representation

Given a finite set of bases $b_1$, $b_2$, \dots, $b_r$ (integers greater than $1$), a multi-base representation of an integer~$n$ is a sum with summands $db_1^{α_1}b_2^{α_2} \cdots b_r^{α_r}$, where the $α_j$ are nonnegative integers and the digits $d$ are taken from a fixed finite set. We consider multi-base representations with at least two bases that are multiplicatively independent. Our main result states that the order of magnitude of the minimal Hamming weight of an integer~$n$, i.e., the minimal number of nonzero summands in a representation of~$n$, is $\log n / (\log \log n)$. This is independent of the number of bases, the bases themselves, and the digit set. For the proof, the existing upper bound for prime bases is generalized to multiplicatively independent bases, for the required analysis of the natural greedy algorithm, an auxiliary result in Diophantine approximation is derived. The lower bound follows by a counting argument and alternatively by using communication complexity, thereby improving the existing bounds and closing the gap in the order of magnitude. This implies also that the greedy algorithm terminates after $\mathcal{O}(\log n/\log \log n)$ steps, and that this bound is sharp.

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arXiv2019

The average size of matchings in graphs

In this paper, we consider the average size of independent edge sets, also called matchings, in a graph. We characterize the extremal graphs for the average size of matchings in general graphs and trees. In addition, we obtain inequalities between the average size of matchings and the number of matchings as well as the matching energy, which is defined as the sum of the absolute values of the zeros of the matching polynomial.

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arXiv2019

On two subclasses of Motzkin paths and their relation to ternary trees

Two subclasses of Motzkin paths, S-Motzkin and T-Motzkin paths, are introduced. We provide bijections between S-Motzkin paths and ternary trees, S-Motzkin paths and non-crossing trees, and T-Motzkin paths and ordered pairs of ternary trees. Symbolic equations for both paths, and thus generating functions for the paths, are provided. Using these, various parameters involving the two paths are analyzed.

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arXiv2018

A central limit theorem for almost local additive tree functionals

An additive functional of a rooted tree is a functional that can be calculated recursively as the sum of the values of the functional over the branches, plus a certain toll function. Janson recently proved a central limit theorem for additive functionals of conditioned Galton-Watson trees under the assumption that the toll function is local, i.e. only depends on a fixed neighbourhood of the root. We extend his result to functionals that are "almost local" in a certain sense, thus covering a wider range of functionals. The notion of almost local functional intuitively means that the toll function can be approximated well by considering only a neighbourhood of the root. Our main result is illustrated by several explicit examples including natural graph theoretic parameters such as the number of independent sets, the number of matchings, and the number of dominating sets. We also cover a functional stemming from a tree reduction process that was studied by Hackl, Heuberger, Kropf, and Prodinger.

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arXiv2018

The ancestral matrix of a rooted tree

Given a rooted tree $T$ with leaves $v_1,v_2,\ldots,v_n$, we define the ancestral matrix $C(T)$ of $T$ to be the $n \times n$ matrix for which the entry in the $i$-th row, $j$-th column is the level (distance from the root) of the first common ancestor of $v_i$ and $v_j$. We study properties of this matrix, in particular regarding its spectrum: we obtain several upper and lower bounds for the eigenvalues in terms of other tree parameters. We also find a combinatorial interpretation for the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial of $C(T)$, and show that for $d$-ary trees, a specific value of the characteristic polynomial is independent of the precise shape of the tree.

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arXiv2018

Reducing Simply Generated Trees by Iterative Leaf Cutting

We consider a procedure to reduce simply generated trees by iteratively removing all leaves. In the context of this reduction, we study the number of vertices that are deleted after applying this procedure a fixed number of times by using an additive tree parameter model combined with a recursive characterization. Our results include asymptotic formulas for mean and variance of this quantity as well as a central limit theorem.

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arXiv2018

The average size of independent sets of graphs

In this paper, we study the average size of independent (vertex) sets of a graph. This invariant can be regarded as the logarithmic derivative of the independence polynomial evaluated at $1$. We are specifically concerned with extremal questions. The maximum and minimum for general graphs are attained by the empty and complete graph respectively, while for trees we prove that the path minimises the average size of independent sets and the star maximises it. While removing a vertex does not always decrease the average size of independent sets, we prove that there always exists a vertex for which this is the case.

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arXiv2018

Inducibility of Topological Trees

Trees without vertices of degree $2$ are sometimes named topological trees. In this work, we bring forward the study of the inducibility of (rooted) topological trees with a given number of leaves. The inducibility of a topological tree $S$ is the limit superior of the proportion of all subsets of leaves of $T$ that induce a copy of $S$ as the size of $T$ grows to infinity. In particular, this relaxes the degree-restriction for the existing notion of the inducibility in $d$-ary trees. We discuss some of the properties of this generalised concept and investigate its connection with the degree-restricted inducibility. In addition, we prove that stars and binary caterpillars are the only topological trees that have an inducibility of $1$. We also find an explicit lower bound on the limit inferior of the proportion of all subsets of leaves of $T$ that induce either a star or a binary caterpillar as the size of $T$ tends to infinity.

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arXiv2018

Inducibility of d-ary trees

Imitating a recently introduced invariant of trees, we initiate the study of the inducibility of $d$-ary trees (rooted trees whose vertex outdegrees are bounded from above by $d\geq 2$) with a given number of leaves. We determine the exact inducibility for stars and binary caterpillars. For $T$ in the family of strictly $d$-ary trees (every vertex has $0$ or $d$ children), we prove that the difference between the maximum density of a $d$-ary tree $D$ in $T$ and the inducibility of $D$ is of order $\mathcal{O}(|T|^{-1/2})$ compared to the general case where it is shown that the difference is $\mathcal{O}(|T|^{-1})$ which, in particular, responds positively to an existing conjecture on the inducibility in binary trees. We also discover that the inducibility of a binary tree in $d$-ary trees is independent of $d$. Furthermore, we establish a general lower bound on the inducibility and also provide a bound for some special trees. Moreover, we find that the maximum inducibility is attained for binary caterpillars for every $d$.

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arXiv2018

Maximum star densities

Given an integer $k \geq 2$ and a real number $γ\in [0, 1]$, which graphs of edge density $γ$ contain the largest number of $k$-edge stars? For $k=2$ Ahlswede and Katona proved that asymptotically there cannot be more such stars than in a clique or in the complement of a clique (depending on the value of $γ$). Here we extend their result to all integers $k\ge 2$.

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