Large vertex-flames in uncountable digraphs

Abstract

The study of minimal subgraphs witnessing a connectivity property is an important field in graph theory. The foundation for large flames has been laid by Lovász: Let $ D=(V,E) $ be a finite digraph and let $ r\in V $. The local connectivity $ κ_D(r,v) $ from $ r $ to $ v $ is defined to be the maximal number of internally disjoint $ r\rightarrow v $ paths in $ D $. A spanning subdigraph $ L $ of $ D $ with $ κ_L(r,v)=κ_D(r,v) $ for every $ v\in V-r $ must have at least $\sum_{v\in V-r}κ_D(r,v) $ edges. Lovász proved that, maybe surprisingly, this lower bound is sharp for every finite digraph. The optimality of an $ L $ sufficing the min-max criteria from Lovász' theorem may instead also be captured by the following structural characterization: For every $ v\in V-r $ there is a system $ \mathcal{P}_v $ of internally disjoint $ r\rightarrow v $ paths in $ L $ covering all the ingoing edges of $ v $ in $ L $ such that one can choose from each $ P\in \mathcal{P}_v $ either an edge or an internal vertex in such a way that the resulting set meets every $ r\rightarrow v $ path of $ D $. The positive result for countably infinite digraphs based on this structural infinite generalisation were obtained by the second author. In this paper we extend this to digraphs of size $ \aleph_1 $ which requires significantly more complex techniques. Despite solving yet the smallest uncountable case, the complete understanding of the concept and potentially a proof for arbitrary cardinality still seems to be far.