English

The Probability to Hit Every Bin with a Linear Number of Balls

Probability 2024-03-04 v1 Data Structures and Algorithms

Abstract

Assume that 2n2n balls are thrown independently and uniformly at random into nn bins. We consider the unlikely event EE that every bin receives at least one ball, showing that Pr[E]=Θ(bn)\Pr[E] = \Theta(b^n) where b0.836b \approx 0.836. Note that, due to correlations, bb is not simply the probability that any single bin receives at least one ball. More generally, we consider the event that throwing αn\alpha n balls into nn bins results in at least dd balls in each bin.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2403.00736,
  title  = {The Probability to Hit Every Bin with a Linear Number of Balls},
  author = {Stefan Walzer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.00736},
  year   = {2024}
}