Centered tree


In discrete mathematics, a centered tree is a tree with only one center, and a bicentered tree is a tree with two centers.
Given a graph, the eccentricity of a vertex v is defined as the greatest distance from v to any other vertex. A center of a graph is a vertex with minimal eccentricity. A graph can have an arbitrary number of centers. However, has proved that for trees, there are only two possibilities:
  1. The tree has precisely one center.
  2. The tree has precisely two centers. In this case, the two centers are adjacent.
A proof of this fact is given, for example, by Knuth.