English

Counting two-forests and random cut size via potential theory

Combinatorics 2023-08-09 v1 Differential Geometry Probability

Abstract

We prove a lower bound on the number of spanning two-forests in a graph, in terms of the number of vertices, edges, and spanning trees. This implies an upper bound on the average cut size of a random two-forest. The main tool is an identity relating the number of spanning trees and two-forests to pairwise effective resistances in a graph. Along the way, we make connections to potential theoretic invariants on metric graphs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2308.03859,
  title  = {Counting two-forests and random cut size via potential theory},
  author = {Harry Richman and Farbod Shokrieh and Chenxi Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.03859},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

20 pages, 5 figures. Comments welcome!

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:50:17.778Z