Decomposing a graph into bistars

Abstract

Bárat and the present author conjectured that, for each tree T, there exists a natural number $k_T$ such that the following holds: If G is a $k_T$-edge-connected graph such that $|E(T)|$ divides $|E(G)|$, then G has a T-decomposition, that is, a decomposition of the edge set into trees each of which is isomorphic to T. The conjecture has been verified for infinitely many paths and for each star. In this paper we verify the conjecture for an infinite family of trees that are neither paths nor stars, namely all the bistars $S(k,k+1)$.