English

Conditional Probability of Derangements and Fixed Points

Combinatorics 2022-01-13 v1 Probability

Abstract

The probability that a random permutation in SnS_n is a derangement is well known to be j=0n(1)j1j!\displaystyle\sum\limits_{j=0}^n (-1)^j \frac{1}{j!}. In this paper, we consider the conditional probability that the (k+1)st(k+1)^{st} point is fixed, given there are no fixed points in the first kk points. We prove that when n3n \neq 3 and k1k \neq 1, this probability is a decreasing function of both kk and nn. Furthermore, it is proved that this conditional probability is well approximated by 1nkn2(n1)\frac{1}{n} - \frac{k}{n^2(n-1)}. Similar results are also obtained about the more general conditional probability that the (k+1)st(k+1)^{st} point is fixed, given that there are exactly dd fixed points in the first kk points.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2201.04181,
  title  = {Conditional Probability of Derangements and Fixed Points},
  author = {Sam Gutmann and Mark Mixer and Steven Morrow},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.04181},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

16 pages, 2 figures. To be published in Transactions on Combinatorics

R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:46:59.776Z