English

A note on the binomial distribution motivated by Chv\'{a}tal's theorem and Tomasewski's theorem

Probability 2025-03-21 v1

Abstract

Let B(n,p)B(n,p) denote a binomial random variable with parameters nn and pp. Chv\'{a}tal's theorem says that for any fixed n2n\geq 2, as mm ranges over {0,1,,n}\{0,1,\ldots,n\}, the probability qm:=P(B(n,m/n)m)q_m:=P(B(n,m/n)\leq m) is the smallest when mm is closest to 2n/32n/3. Let R\mathcal{R} be the family of random variables of the form X=k=1nakεkX=\sum^n_{k=1}a_k\varepsilon_k, where n1n\ge 1, ak,k=1,,n,a_k, k=1, \dots, n, are real numbers with k=1nak2=1\sum^n_{k=1} a_k^2=1, and εk\varepsilon_k, k=1,2,k=1, 2, \dots, are independent Rademacher random variables (i.e., P(εk=1)=P(εk=1)=1/2P(\varepsilon_k=1)=P(\varepsilon_k=-1)=1/2). Tomaszewski's theorem says that infXRP(X1)=1/2\inf_{X\in \mathcal{R}}P(|X|\leq 1)=1/2. Motivated by Chv\'{a}tal's Theorem and Tomasewski's Theorem, in this note, we study the minimum value of the probability fn(k):=P(B(n,k/n)kVar(B(n,k/n)))f_n(k):=P(|B(n,k/n)-k|\leq \sqrt{{\rm Var} (B(n,k/n))}) when kk ranges over {0,1,,n}\{0,1,\ldots,n\} for any fixed n1n\geq 1, where Var(){\rm Var} (\cdot) denotes the variance, and prove that it is the smallest when k=1k=1 and n1n-1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.15899,
  title  = {A note on the binomial distribution motivated by Chv\'{a}tal's theorem and Tomasewski's theorem},
  author = {Zheng-Yan Guo and Ze-Chun Hu and Run-Yu Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.15899},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

11 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:27:51.457Z