Laplacian Spectrum and Domination in Trees

For a finite simple undirected graph $G$, let $\gamma(G)$ denote the size of a smallest dominating set of $G$ and $\mu(G)$ denote the number of eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix of $G$ in the interval $[0,1)$, counting multiplicities. Hedetniemi, Jacobs and Trevisan [Eur. J. Comb. 2016] showed that for any graph $G$, $\mu(G) \leqslant \gamma(G)$. Cardoso, Jacobs and Trevisan [Graphs Combin. 2017] asks whether the ratio $\gamma(T)/\mu(T)$ is bounded by a constant for all trees $T$. We answer this question by showing that this ratio is less than $4/3$ for every tree. We establish the optimality of this bound by constructing an infinite family of trees where this ratio approaches $4/3$. We also improve this upper bound for trees in which all the vertices other than leaves and their parents have degree at least $k$, for every $k \geqslant 3$. We show that, for such trees $T$, $\gamma(T)/\mu(T) < 1 + 1/((k-2)(k+1))$.