The stable trees are nested (Q389280)

The authors prove that hidden inside any stable tree of parameter \(\alpha\), \(\alpha\in (1,2)\), there exists a rescaled version of a stable tree of parameter \(\alpha^\prime\), \(\alpha^\prime\in (\alpha,2]\) which can be constructed by a pruning procedure and can be interpreted as the genealogical tree of a pure-jump self-similar fragmentation of index \(-(1-\alpha^{-1})\) and an explicitly given dislocation measure. As a consequence, there exists a family of rescaled nested stable trees. It was known from earlier works that a stable tree can be approximated as \(n\to\infty\) in probability in the Gromov-Hausdorff-Prokhorov topology by a sequence of random trees on \(n\) vertices. The authors show that the approximation holds almost surely, and this serves as the key technical tool of the present paper.