English

Probabilistic AVL Trees (p-AVL): Relaxing Deterministic Balancing

Data Structures and Algorithms 2026-04-03 v1

Abstract

This paper studies the empirical behaviour of the p-AVL tree, a probabilistic variant of the AVL tree in which each imbalance is repaired with probability pp. This gives an exact continuous interpolation from p=0p = 0, which recovers the BST endpoint, to p=1p = 1, which recovers the standard AVL tree. Across random-order insertion experiments, we track rotations per node, total imbalance events, average depth, average height, and a global imbalance statistic σ\sigma. The main empirical result is that even small nonzero p already causes a strong structural change. The goal here is empirical rather than fully theoretical: to document the behaviour of the p-AVL family clearly and identify the main patterns.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.02223,
  title  = {Probabilistic AVL Trees (p-AVL): Relaxing Deterministic Balancing},
  author = {Hayagriv Desikan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.02223},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

22 pages,15 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:51:23.435Z