Spanning trees of \(K_{1,4}\)-free graphs with a bounded number of leaves and branch vertices (Q6964826)

In this paper, the author studies the spanning trees with a bounded number of leaves and branch vertices of \(K_{1,4}\)-free graphs. For each positive integer \(p\), let \(\sigma_{p}(G)=\infty\) if \(\alpha(G)<p\) and \(\min\{\sum_{i=1}^{p}d_{G}(v_i)\mid \{v_1, \ldots, v_p\} \text{ is an independent set in } G\}\) otherwise, where \(\alpha(G)\) is the independence number of \(G\). The main result is the following: Let \(k\), \(m\) be two non-negative intergers (\(m \leq k +1\)) and let \(G\) be a connected \(K_{1,4}\)-free graph of order \(n\). If \(\sigma_{m+2}(G) \geq n - k\), then \(G\) has a spanning tree with at most \(m + k + 2\) leaves and branch vertices.\N\NApplying the main results, he also gives some improvements of previous results on the spanning tree with few branch vertices for the case of \(K_{1,4}\)-free graphs.