Vertex degrees of Steiner minimal trees in \(\ell_p^d\) and other smooth Minkowski spaces (Q1289246)

Given a finite-dimensional Banach space. For a finite set \(S\) of points in this space a Steiner minimal tree \(T\) for \(S\) is a tree interconnecting \(S\) such that the total length of \(T\) is minimal among all trees on \(S\). The vertices of \(V(T)\setminus S\) are called Steiner points. It is well known that there are upper bounds for the degrees of the vertices in a Steiner minimal tree where these quantities depend only on the space. The paper investigates the geometry of \(d\)-dimensional Banach spaces \(X\), to find the values \(s(X)\) and \(v(X)\) for the largest degree of a Steiner point and a vertex, respectively. Particularly, it is shown that (1) \(3\leq s(X)\leq v(X)\leq d+1\) holds in a smooth space of dimension at least 2, and (2) in a space normed by a \(p\)-norm, \(p\geq 2\), the quantities \(s(X)\) and \(v(X)\) are relatively small and independent of the dimension of the space.