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Properties and characterizations of k-trees

Part of:Graph theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2010

L. W. Beineke
Affiliation:
Purdue University, Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.
R. E. Pippert
Affiliation:
Purdue University, Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A.
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Trees are basic in graph theory and its applications to many fields, such as chemistry, electric network theory, and the theory of games. König [7; 47-48] gives an interesting historical account of independent discoveries of trees by Kirchhoff, Cayley, Sylvester, Jordan, and others who were working in a variety of fields.

There are many equivalent ways of defining trees, the most common being: A tree is a graph which is connected and has no circuits. Figure 1 shows the trees with up to six vertices; those with up to 10 vertices can be found in Harary [5; 233–234]. Some other possible definitions of a tree are the following: (1) A tree is a graph which is connected and has one more vertex than edge. (2) A tree is a graph which has no circuits and has one more vertex than edge. For these and other characterizations see Berge [4; 152ff.] and Harary [5; 32ff.]. A less common definition is by induction: The graph consisting of a single vertex is a tree, and a tree with n + 1 vertices is obtained from a tree with n vertices by adding a new vertex adjacent to exactly one other vertex.

MSC classification

Secondary:05C05: Trees

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University College London 1971

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