English

Uniform versus Zipf distribution in a mixing collection process

Probability 2019-04-23 v1

Abstract

We consider the following variant of the classic collector's problem: The family of coupon probabilities is the mixing of two subfamilies one of which is the \textit{uniform} family, while the other belongs to the well known \textit{Zipf family}. We obtain asymptotics for the expectation, the second rising moment, and the variance of the random variable TNT_N, namely the number of trials needed for all the NN types of coupons to be collected (at least once, with replacement) as NN \rightarrow \infty. It is interesting that the effect of the uniform subcollection on the asymptotics of the expectation of TNT_N (at least up to the sixth term) appears only in the leading factor of the expectation of TNT_N. The limiting distribution of TNT_N is derived as well. These results answer a question placed in a recent work of ours [\textit{Electron. J. Probab.} \textbf{18} (2012) 1--15].

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1904.09817,
  title  = {Uniform versus Zipf distribution in a mixing collection process},
  author = {Aristides V. Doumas and Vassilis G. Papanicolaou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.09817},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:46:14.218Z