English

Asymptotic height of Plancherel random trees

Probability 2026-04-29 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

We study a natural analogue of Ulam's problem for random rooted trees distributed according to a Plancherel-type measure. This probability measure is closely related to the classical Plancherel measure on integer partitions. For a Plancherel random tree TnT_n with nn vertices, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of its height HnH_n, defined as the maximal distance from the root to a leaf. We prove that this height grows logarithmically. More precisely, there is a one-parameter family of random trees (Tn(θ))nN(T_n(\theta))_{n \in \mathbb{N}} indexed by θ>0\theta>0 such that Hnlogn\frac{H_n}{\log n} converges in probability to c(θ)c_\star(\theta), where c(θ)c_\star(\theta) is an explicit constant depending on the parameter θ\theta. The case of Plancherel trees corresponds to the parameter θ=2\theta=2. The proof is based on the fact that the Plancherel random trees can be viewed as Ewens fragmentation trees, for which the height exhibits a sharp threshold phenomenon. An upper bound is obtained via ss-mass functionals and contraction estimates, while the lower bound is derived by embedding the model into a branching random walk with logarithmic displacements governed by a Poisson--Dirichlet distribution. The constant c(θ)c_\star(\theta) is characterized through a variational principle associated with this branching random walk.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.25877,
  title  = {Asymptotic height of Plancherel random trees},
  author = {Shengjun Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.25877},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

73 pages, 3 figures. Comments welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:39:39.680Z