Antidirected trees in dense digraphs

Abstract: We show that if $D$ is an $n$-vertex digraph with more than $(k-1)n$ arcs that does not contain any of three forbidden digraphs, then $D$ contains every antidirected tree on $k$ arcs. The forbidden digraphs are those orientations of $K_{2, \lceil k/12\rceil}$ where each of the vertices in the class of size two has either out-degree $0$ or in-degree $0$. This proves a conjecture of Addario-Berry et al. for a broad class of digraphs, and generalises a result for $K_{2, \lfloor k/12\rfloor}$-free graphs by Balasubramanian and Dobson. We also show that every digraph $D$ on $n$ vertices with more than $(k-1)n$ arcs contains every antidirected $k$-arc caterpillar, thus solving the above conjecture for caterpillars. This generalises a result of Perles.