English

On the Golomb-Dickman constant under Ewens sampling

Probability 2026-05-22 v3 Statistical Mechanics Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

We define a generalized Golomb--Dickman constant λθ\lambda_{\theta} as the limiting expected proportion of the longest cycle in random permutations under the Ewens measure with parameter θ>0\theta > 0. Exploiting the independence properties of Kingman's Poisson process construction of the Poisson--Dirichlet distribution, we obtain an explicit integral representation for λθ\lambda_{\theta} in terms of the exponential integral. The dependence of λθ\lambda_{\theta} on θ\theta reflects the transition between regimes dominated by long cycles (small θ\theta) and those with many small cycles (large θ\theta). We also derive the asymptotic behavior of λθ\lambda_{\theta} for small and large θ\theta and illustrate our results with numerical computations, Monte Carlo simulations of the Hoppe urn, and an application.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.23175,
  title  = {On the Golomb-Dickman constant under Ewens sampling},
  author = {José Ricardo G. Mendonça and Luis Jehiel Negret},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.23175},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

AMSart style, 10 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, 19 refs. Version v2 acknowledges Holst's work (2001), adds the asymptotic analysis of $\lambda_{\theta}$, and displays simulations of the Hoppe urn model. Version v3 corresponds to the (slightly corrected and improved) published version

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:35:24.973Z