Spanning trees in random series-parallel graphs

Abstract

By means of analytic techniques we show that the expected number of spanning trees in a connected labelled series-parallel graph on $n$ vertices chosen uniformly at random satisfies an estimate of the form $s \varrho^{-n} (1+o(1))$, where $s$ and $\varrho$ are computable constants, the values of which are approximately $s \approx 0.09063$ and $\varrho^{-1} \approx 2.08415$. We obtain analogue results for subfamilies of series-parallel graphs including 2-connected series-parallel graphs, 2-trees, and series-parallel graphs with fixed excess.