The CRT is the scaling limit of unordered binary trees

Jean-François Marckert, Grégory Miermont

Published 2009-02-26Version 1

We prove that a uniform, rooted unordered binary tree with $n$ vertices has the Brownian continuum random tree as its scaling limit for the Gromov-Hausdorff topology. The limit is thus, up to a constant factor, the same as that of uniform plane trees or labeled trees. Our analysis rests on a combinatorial and probabilistic study of appropriate trimming procedures of trees.