Minimal obstructions for normal spanning trees

Abstract

Diestel and Leader have characterised connected graphs that admit a normal spanning tree via two classes of forbidden minors. One class are Halin's $(\aleph_0,\aleph_1)$-graphs: bipartite graphs with bipartition $(\mathbb{N},B)$ such that $B$ is uncountable and every vertex of $B$ has infinite degree. Our main result is that under Martin's Axiom and the failure of the Continuum Hypothesis, the class of forbidden $(\aleph_0,\aleph_1)$-graphs in Diestel and Leader's result can be replaced by one single instance of such a graph. Under CH, however, the class of $(\aleph_0,\aleph_1)$-graphs contains minor-incomparable elements, namely graphs of binary type, and $\mathcal{U}$-indivisible graphs. Assuming CH, Diestel and Leader asked whether every $(\aleph_0,\aleph_1)$-graph has an $(\aleph_0,\aleph_1)$-minor that is either indivisible or of binary type, and whether any two $\mathcal{U}$-indivisible graphs are necessarily minors of each other. For both questions, we construct examples showing that the answer is in the negative.