A Cantor-Bendixson rank for siblings of trees (Q6162132)

Summary: Similar to topological spaces, we introduce the Cantor-Bendixson rank of a tree \(T\) by repeatedly removing the leaves and the isolated vertices of \(T\) using transfinite recursion. Then, we give a representation of a tree \(T\) as a leafless tree \(T^\infty\) with some leafy trees attached to \(T^\infty\). With this representation at our disposal, we count the siblings of a tree and obtain partial results towards a conjecture of \textit{A. Bonato} and \textit{C. Tardif} [J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 96, No. 6, 874--880 (2006; Zbl 1108.05031)].