Spanning 3-ended trees in almost claw-free graphs (Q1723356)

Summary: We prove that if \(G\) is a \(k\)-connected (\(k \geq 2\)) almost claw-free graph of order \(n\) and \(\sigma_{k + 3}(G) \geq n + 2 k - 2\), then \(G\) contains a spanning 3-ended tree, where \(\sigma_k(G) = \min \{\sum_{v \in S} \operatorname{deg}(v) : S\) is an independent set of \(G\) with \(\left|S\right| = k \}\).