The almost-sure connectivity of the Euclidean minimal spanning forest MSF(X) on a homogeneous Poisson point process X ⊂ ℝd is an open problem for dimension d>2. We introduce a descending family of graphs (Gn)n≥2 that can be seen as approximations to the MSF in the sense that MSF(X)=∩n=2∞Gn(X). For n=2, one recovers the relative neighborhood graph or, in other words, the β-skeleton with β=2. We show that almost-sure connectivity of Gn(X) holds for all n≥2, all dimensions d≥2, and also point processes X more general than the homogeneous Poisson point process. In particular, we show that almost-sure connectivity holds if certain continuum percolation thresholds are strictly positive or, more generally, if almost surely X does not admit generalized descending chains.

We consider a hard-sphere model in ℝd generated by a stationary point process N and the lilypond growth protocol: at time 0, every point of N starts growing with unit speed in all directions to form a system of balls in which any particular ball ceases its growth at the instant that it collides with another ball. Some quite general conditions are given, under which it is shown that the model is well defined and exhibits no percolation. The absence of percolation is attributable to the fact that, under our assumptions, there can be no descending chains in N. The proof of this fact forms a significant part of the paper. It is also shown that, in the absence of descending chains, mutual-nearest-neighbour matching can be used to construct a bijective point map as defined by Thorisson.