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Type II success runs of Bernoulli trials separated by a gap

Probability 2025-12-02 v2 Combinatorics

Abstract

We treat success runs of independent identically distributed Bernoulli trials (with success parameter pp) distributed according to the Type II binomial distribution of order kk. However, the success runs are separated by a gap g1g\ge1 (a failure followed by g1g-1 arbitrary outcomes). Most of the literature treats the case g=1g=1 only. Our main results are expressions for the probability mass function (we present two derivations) and the distribution of the longest success run. We also present more concise expressions for previously published results for the factorial moments. We present results for the mean, variance, probability mass function and factorial moments for NBII(k,g,r)\textrm{NB}_{\rm II}(k,g,r), the Type II negative binomial distribution of order kk, where the number of success runs rr is fixed and the number of trials nn is variable. Let LL denote the length of the longest success run. We present a recurrence and generating function for the distribution of LL and derive expressions for the mean, variance and factorial moments of LL.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.22873,
  title  = {Type II success runs of Bernoulli trials separated by a gap},
  author = {S. J. Dilworth and S. R. Mane},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.22873},
  year   = {2025}
}

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25 pages