English

On a generalisation of the coupon collector problem

Probability 2023-09-13 v2 Combinatorics

Abstract

We consider a generalisation of the classical coupon collector problem. We define a super-coupon to be any ss-subset of a universe of nn coupons. In each round, a random rr-subset from the universe is drawn and all its ss-subsets are marked as collected. We show that the time to collect all super-coupons is (rs)1(ns)log(ns)(1+o(1))\binom{r}{s}^{-1}\binom{n}{s} \log \binom{n}{s}(1 + o(1)) on average and has a Gumbel limit after a suitable normalisation. In a similar vein, we show that for any α(0,1)\alpha \in (0, 1), the expected time to collect (1α)(1 - \alpha) proportion of all super-coupons is (rs)1(ns)log(1α)(1+o(1))\binom{r}{s}^{-1}\binom{n}{s} \log \big(\frac{1}{\alpha}\big)(1 + o(1)). The r=sr = s case of this model is equivalent to the classical coupon collector model. We also consider a temporally dependent model where the rr-subsets are drawn according to the following Markovian dynamics: the rr-subset at round k+1k + 1 is formed by replacing a random coupon from the rr-subset drawn at round kk with another random coupon from outside this rr-subset. We link the time it takes to collect all super-coupons in the r=sr = s case of this model to the cover time of random walk on a certain finite regular graph and conjecture that in general, it takes rs(rs)1(ns)log(ns)(1+o(1))\frac{r}{s} \binom{r}{s}^{-1}\binom{n}{s}\log\binom{n}{s}(1 + o(1)) time on average to collect all super-coupons.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2304.01145,
  title  = {On a generalisation of the coupon collector problem},
  author = {Siva Athreya and Satyaki Mukherjee and Soumendu Sundar Mukherjee},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.01145},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

16 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T09:47:14.366Z