Extremal Spanning Trees in Product Grid Graphs

Abstract

We study how fixed-volume spanning-tree extremality changes when product-grid boundary factors are free, periodic, or mixed. In two dimensions, extremality depends sharply on the boundary type. The free/free and periodic/periodic products both obey a closest-to-square principle: among fixed-area rectangles, $P_r\square P_s$ and $C_r\square C_s$ are maximized by the closest-to-square admissible side lengths. The mixed free/periodic cylinder $P_r\square C_s$ is different: closest-to-square fails, and in the divisor-rich case the optimizing cyclic circumference has scale $N^{1/3}$ when the area is $N=rs$. In arbitrary dimension we prove pairwise balancing theorems for pure free products and pure periodic products, and then strengthen them by a heat-trace Schur-concavity theorem in logarithmic side lengths. At perfect-power volume this gives the unique maximizers $P_n^{\square d}$ and, for $n\ge3$, $C_n^{\square d}$. These product-grid comparisons motivate perfect-power conjectures for connected induced lattice subgraphs and periodic analogues.