English

Expected Length of the Longest Common Subsequence of Multiple Strings

Combinatorics 2025-04-15 v1 Discrete Mathematics Probability

Abstract

We study the generalized Chv\'atal-Sankoff constant γk,d\gamma_{k,d}, which represents the normalized expected length of the longest common subsequence (LCS) of dd independent uniformly random strings over an alphabet of size kk. We derive asymptotically tight bounds for γ2,d\gamma_{2,d}, establishing that γ2,d=12+Θ(1d)\gamma_{2,d} = \frac{1}{2} + \Theta\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{d}}\right). We also derive asymptotically near-optimal bounds on γk,d\gamma_{k,d} for dΩ(logk)d\ge \Omega(\log k).

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.10425,
  title  = {Expected Length of the Longest Common Subsequence of Multiple Strings},
  author = {Ray Li and William Ren and Yiran Wen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.10425},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:57:57.372Z