Induced subgraphs with large degrees at end-vertices for hamiltonicity of claw-free graphs

A graph is called claw-free if it contains no induced subgraph isomorphic to K1,3. Matthews and Sumner proved that a 2-connected claw-free graph G is Hamiltonian if every vertex of it has degree at least (|V(G)|-2)/3. At the workshop C&C (Novy Smokovec, 1993), Broersma conjectured the degree condition of this result can be restricted only to end-vertices of induced copies of N (the graph obtained from a triangle by adding three disjoint pendant edges). Fujisawa and Yamashita showed that the degree condition of Matthews and Sumner can be restricted only to end-vertices of induced copies of Z₁ (the graph obtained from a triangle by adding one pendant edge). Our main result in this paper is a characterization of all graphs H such that a 2-connected claw-free graph G is Hamiltonian if each end-vertex of every induced copy of H in G has degree at least |V(G)|/3+1. This gives an affirmative solution of the conjecture of Broersma up to an additive constant.