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5.10. Trees

A tree is a connected graph without cycles, useful in various disciplines, especially computer science for algorithms and decision modeling. Key properties include having n-1 edges, being connected, and containing a unique path between any two vertices. A forest is a collection of trees, and a rooted tree designates one vertex as the root, with specific terminology for parent, child, and leaf vertices.

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2 views1 page

5.10. Trees

A tree is a connected graph without cycles, useful in various disciplines, especially computer science for algorithms and decision modeling. Key properties include having n-1 edges, being connected, and containing a unique path between any two vertices. A forest is a collection of trees, and a rooted tree designates one vertex as the root, with specific terminology for parent, child, and leaf vertices.

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merix017
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Discrete Structures

5.10. Trees

A connected graph that contains no cycles is called a tree. Trees were used as long ago as
1857, when the English mathematician Arthur Cayley used them to count certain types of chemical
compounds. Since that time, trees have been employed to solve problems in a wide variety of
disciplines.
Trees are particularly useful in computer science, where they are employed in a wide range of
algorithms. For instance, trees are used to construct efficient algorithms for locating items in a list.
Trees can be used to model procedures carried out using a sequence of decisions.
A tree is a connected undirected graph with no cycles.
Because a tree cannot have a cycle, a tree cannot contain multiple edges or loops.
Theorem. Let G be an undirected graph on n vertices. Then the following statements are
equivalent:
(a) G is a tree (i.e. is connected and has no cycles).
(b) G has 𝑛 − 1 edges and no cycles.
(c) G has 𝑛 − 1 edges and is connected.
(d) G is connected and every edge is a bridge.
(e) G has no cycles, but the addition of an arbitrary edge would create a cycle.
(f) G contains a unique path between any pair of vertices.

A disconnected graph, each connected component of which is a tree, is called a forest.


In many applications of trees, a particular vertex of a tree is designated as the root.
A rooted tree is a tree in which one vertex has been designated as the root and every edge is
directed away from the root.
We usually draw a rooted tree with its root ot the top of the graph. The arrows indicating the
directions of the edges in a rooted tree can be omitted, because the choise of root determines the
directions of the edges.
A vertex of a rooted tree is called a leaf if its degree is equal to 1.
The terminology for trees has botanical and genealogical origins. Suppose that T is a rooted
tree. If v is a vertex in T other than the root, the parent of v is the unique vertex u such that there is a
directed edge from u to v. When u is the parent of v, v is called a child of u.
A vertex of a rooted tree is called a leaf if it has no children. Vertices that have children are
called internal vertices.
A rooted tree is a binary tree, if each internal vertex has two children, the first child is called
the left child and the second child is called the right child.

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