Note on a paper of McMorris and Shier
A generalized s-star, s ≥ 1, is a tree with a root Z of degree s; all other vertices have degree ≤ 2. denotes a generalized 3-star, all three maximal paths starting in Z have exactly i+1 vertices (including Z). Let be a surface of Euler characteristic χ() ≤ 0, and m():= ⎣(5 + √49-24χ( ))/2⎦. We prove: (1) Let k ≥ 1, d ≥ m() be integers. Each polyhedral map G on with a k-path (on k vertices) contains a k-path of maximum degree ≤ d in G or a generalized s-star T, s ≤ m(), on d + 2- m() vertices...
Let be a path on vertices. In an earlier paper we have proved that each polyhedral map on any compact -manifold with Euler characteristic contains a path such that each vertex of this path has, in , degree . Moreover, this bound is attained for or , even. In this paper we prove that for each odd , this bound is the best possible on infinitely many compact -manifolds, but on infinitely many other compact -manifolds the upper bound can be lowered to .
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