Embedding loose spanning trees in 3-uniform hypergraphs

In 1995, Komlós, Sárközy and Szemerédi showed that every large n-vertex graph with minimum degree at least (1/2+γ)n contains all spanning trees of bounded degree. We consider a generalization of this result to loose spanning hypertrees in 3-graphs, that is, linear hypergraphs obtained by successively appending edges sharing a single vertex with a previous edge. We show that for all γ and Δ, and n large, every n-vertex 3-uniform hypergraph of minimum vertex degree (5/9+γ)(n2) contains every loose spanning tree T with maximum vertex degree Δ. This bound is asymptotically tight, since some loose trees contain perfect matchings.