Csikvári's poset and Tutte polynomial

Abstract

Csikvári constructed a poset on trees to prove that several graph functions attain extreme values at the star and the path among the trees on a fixed number of vertices. Reiner and Smith proved that the Tutte polynomials $T(1,y)$ of cones over trees, which are the graphs obtained by attaching a cone vertex to a tree, have the described extreme behavior. They further conjectured that the result can be strengthened in terms of Csikvári's poset. We solve this conjecture affirmatively.

arXiv commentThis version is the same as the journal version (Discrete Mathematics)