Bounded diameter monochromatic component covers

Abstract

Ryser conjectured that every $r$-edge-coloured complete graph can be covered by $r-1$ monochromatic trees. Motivated by a question of Austin in analysis, Milićević predicted something stronger -- that every $r$-edge-coloured complete graph can be covered by $r-1$ monochromatic trees \emph{of bounded diameter}. Here we show that the two conjectures are equivalent. As immediate corollaries we obtain new results about Milićević's Conjecture, most notably that it is true for $r=5$. We also obtain several new cases of a generalization of Milićević's Conjecture to non-complete graphs due to DeBiasio-Kamel-McCourt-Sheats.