Lower bounds for the size in four families of minimum broadcast graphs

In this paper, we give a lower bound for the size B(n) of a minimum broadcast graph of order n = 2^k − 4, 2^k − 6, 2^k − 5 or 2^k − 3 which is shown to be accurate in the cases when k = 5 and k = 6. This result provides, together with an upper bound obtained by a construction given in Bermond et al. (1992), an estimation of the value B(n) for n = 2^k − 4.