English

Counting Deranged Matchings

Combinatorics 2022-11-04 v1 Probability

Abstract

Let pm(G)\mathrm{pm}(G) denote the number of perfect matchings of a graph GG, and let Kr×2n/rK_{r\times 2n/r} denote the complete rr-partite graph where each part has size 2n/r2n/r. Johnson, Kayll, and Palmer conjectured that for any perfect matching MM of Kr×2n/rK_{r\times 2n/r}, we have for 2n2n divisible by rr pm(Kr×2n/rM)pm(Kr×2n/r)er/(2r2).\frac{\mathrm{pm}(K_{r\times 2n/r}-M)}{\mathrm{pm}(K_{r\times 2n/r})}\sim e^{-r/(2r-2)}. This conjecture can be viewed as a common generalization of counting the number of derangements on nn letters, and of counting the number of deranged matchings of K2nK_{2n}. We prove this conjecture. In fact, we prove the stronger result that if RR is a uniformly random perfect matching of Kr×2n/rK_{r\times 2n/r}, then the number of edges that RR has in common with MM converges to a Poisson distribution with parameter r2r2\frac{r}{2r-2}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2211.01872,
  title  = {Counting Deranged Matchings},
  author = {Sam Spiro and Erlang Surya},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.01872},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

15 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-28T05:06:44.848Z