On a conjecture of Nikiforov involving a spectral radius condition for a graph to contain all trees

Abstract

We partly confirm a Brualdi-Solheid-Tur\'{a}n type conjecture due to Nikiforov, which is a spectral radius analogue of the well-known Erd\H{o}s-S\'os Conjecture that any tree of order $t$ is contained in a graph of average degree greater than $t-2$. We confirm Nikiforov's Conjecture for all brooms and for a larger class of spiders. For our proofs we also obtain a new Tur\'{a}n type result which might turn out to be of independent interest.