English

Approaching the coupon collector's problem with group drawings via Stein's method

Probability 2022-02-16 v1

Abstract

In this paper the coupon collector's problem with group drawings is studied. Assume there are n n different coupons. At each time precisely s s of the n n coupons are drawn, where all choices are supposed to have equal probability. The focus lies on the fluctuations, as nn\to\infty, of the number Zn,s(kn)Z_{n,s}(k_n) of coupons that have not been drawn in the first knk_n drawings. Using a size-biased coupling construction together with Stein's method for normal approximation, a quantitative central limit theorem for Zn,s(kn)Z_{n,s}(k_n) is shown for the case that kn=ns(αlog(n)+x)k_n={n\over s}(\alpha\log(n)+x), where 0<α<10<\alpha<1 and xRx\in\mathbb{R}. The same coupling construction is used to retrieve a quantitative Poisson limit theorem in the boundary case α=1\alpha=1, again using Stein's method.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2202.07485,
  title  = {Approaching the coupon collector's problem with group drawings via Stein's method},
  author = {Carina Betken and Christoph Thäle},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.07485},
  year   = {2022}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T09:38:30.250Z