English

The number of k-tons in the coupon collector problem

Probability 2022-06-13 v6

Abstract

Consider the coupon collector problem where each box of a brand of cereal contains a coupon and there are n different types of coupons. Suppose that the probability of a box containing a coupon of a specific type is 1/n1/n and that we keep buying boxes until we collect at least mm coupons of each type. For kmk\geq m call a certain coupon a kk-ton if we see it kk times by the time we have seen mm copies of all of the coupons. Here we determine the asymptotic distribution of the number of kk-tons after we have collected mm copies of each coupon for any kk in a restricted range, given any fixed mm. We also determine the asymptotic joint probability distribution over such values of kk and the total number of coupons collected.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2005.08915,
  title  = {The number of k-tons in the coupon collector problem},
  author = {J. C. Saunders},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.08915},
  year   = {2022}
}