On the intersection of pairs of trees

We consider the number of common edges in two independent random spanning trees of a graph $G$. For complete graphs $K_n$, we give a new proof of the fact, originally obtained by Moon, that the distribution converges to a Poisson distribution with expected value $2$. This is applied to show a Poisson limit law for the number of common edges in two independent random spanning trees of an Erdős--Rényi random graph $G(n,p)$ for constant~$p$, as well as a central limit theorem in the case where $p\to 0$ and $p\geq n^{-2/3+\gep}$. We also use the same method to prove an analogous result for complete multipartite graphs.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
European Journal of Combinatorics
Published
2026-09-09
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejc.2026.104437
Primary Topic
Graph Labeling and Dimension Problems
Type
article
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article

On the intersection of pairs of trees

Miklós Bóna
European Journal of Combinatorics
Graph Labeling and Dimension Problems
article

On the intersection of pairs of trees

Miklós Bóna
article en

Abstract

We consider the number of common edges in two independent random spanning trees of a graph $G$. For complete graphs $K_n$, we give a new proof of the fact, originally obtained by Moon, that the distribution converges to a Poisson distribution with expected value $2$. This is applied to show a Poisson limit law for the number of common edges in two independent random spanning trees of an Erdős--Rényi random graph $G(n,p)$ for constant~$p$, as well as a central limit theorem in the case where $p\to 0$ and $p\geq n^{-2/3+\gep}$. We also use the same method to prove an analogous result for complete multipartite graphs.

European Journal of CombinatoricsVol. 139
Openalex Percentile: Top 97%
Graph Labeling and Dimension Problems
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