Generalizations of the Tree Packing Conjecture

Abstract

The Gy\'arf\'as tree packing conjecture asserts that any set of trees with $2,3, ..., k$ vertices has an (edge-disjoint) packing into the complete graph on $k$ vertices. Gy\'arf\'as and Lehel proved that the conjecture holds in some special cases. We address the problem of packing trees into $k$-chromatic graphs. In particular, we prove that if all but three of the trees are stars then they have a packing into any $k$-chromatic graph. We also consider several other generalizations of the conjecture.