Gao–Yang's directed Nine Dragon Tree conjecture

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Let DD be a digraph. A branching is a digraph whose components are arborescences, and write γ(D)\gamma(D) for the directed fractional packing parameter and Δ−\Delta^- and Δ+\Delta^+ for minimum and maximum indegree and outdegree, respectively. Let k,dk,d be positive integers. Gao–Yang's directed Nine Dragon Tree conjecture. If

γ(D)≤k+d−kd+1\gamma(D)\leq k+\frac{d-k}{d+1}

and

Δ−(D)≤k+1,\Delta^-(D)\leq k+1,

then DD decomposes into k+1k+1 branchings F1,F2,…,Fk+1F_1,F_2,\ldots,F_{k+1} with

Δ+(Fk+1)≤d+1.\Delta^+(F_{k+1})\leq d+1.

This is the digraphic version of the Nine Dragon Tree conjecture introduced by Gao and Yang; the supplied text says that only part of it had been proved, so its full status remains open.

References

Primary source

Hui Gao, “Packing spanning arborescences with extra large one”, arXiv:2511.18952 (2025).

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