# Out-Degree of a Configuration Graph

In Chapter 4 in Computational Complexity by Arora and Barak it states, regarding the configuration graph of a Turing Machine, that

If M is deterministic, then the graph has out-degree one, and if M is nondeterministic, then the graph has out-degree at most two.

In the configuration graph, a directed edge is placed from the configurations $$C$$ to $$C'$$ if we can obtain $$C'$$ from $$C$$ via a single transition. Also, the authors assume we are working with two tape Turing machine with one read-only input tape and one read-write work tape. Here, the authors define a configuration by

A configuration of a TM M consists of the contents of all nonblank entries of M’s tapes, along with its state and head position, at a particular point in its execution.

I understand that the out-degree for a deterministic machine must be 1, but I do not see why the out-degree for the non-deterministic machine can be at most 2. Given that the authors assume that $$\Gamma= \{0,1\}$$, I would assume that the number of possible configurations reachable from any given configuration would be $$|\Gamma||Q||\{L,R\}^2|$$ for a two tape Turing machine, where $$Q$$ is the set of states and one head is on a read-only input tape. Why would the out-degree of this graph be at most $$2$$ instead?

Based on some research into other things related to TMs, I discovered that any NDTM that has at most $$k$$ possible branches at each step can be modified into an NDTM that has at most $$2$$ possible branches at each step at the cost of a $$\log_2(k)$$ slowdown. Though I can not find any mention of this anywhere in the textbook, I assume this is what the authors are assuming.