Spanning trees of finite Sierpiński graphs

Abstract

We show that the number of spanning trees in the finite Sierpiński graph of level $n$ is given by $\sqrt[4]{\frac{3}{20}} (\frac{5}{3})^{-n/2} (\sqrt[4]{540})^{3^n}$. The proof proceeds in two steps: First, we show that the number of spanning trees and two further quantities satisfy a $3$-dimensional polynomial recursion using the self-similar structure. Secondly, it turns out, that the dynamical behavior of the recursion is given by a $2$-dimensional polynomial map, whose iterates can be computed explicitly.

Keywords

• combinatorial enumeration
• spanning trees
• finite sierpiński graphs
• [info.info-ds] computer science [cs]/data structures and algorithms [cs.ds]
• [info.info-dm] computer science [cs]/discrete mathematics [cs.dm]
• [math.math-co] mathematics [math]/combinatorics [math.co]