Conditioning Galton–Watson Trees on Large Maximal Outdegree

Abstract

We propose a new way to condition random trees, that is, conditioning random trees to have large maximal outdegree. Under this conditioning, we show that conditioned critical Galton–Watson trees converge locally to size-biased trees with a unique infinite spine. For the subcritical case, we obtain the local convergence to size-biased trees with a unique infinite node. We also study the tail of the maximal outdegree of subcritical Galton–Watson trees, which is essential for the proof of the local convergence.