Related papers: The probability that a character value is zero for…

For a pair of random Gaussian integers chosen uniformly and independently from the set of Gaussian integers of norm $x$ or less as $x$ goes to infinity, we find asymptotics for the average norm of their greatest common divisor, with…

For a fixed alphabet A, an infinite sequence X is said to be normal if every word w over A appears in X with the same frequency as any other word of the same length. A classical result relates normality to finite automata as follows: a…

If we treat the symmetric group $S_n$ as a probability measure space where each element has measure $1/n!$, then the number of cycles in a permutation becomes a random variable. The Cycle Length Lemma describes the expected values of…

In this short note, we classify pairs of conjugacy classes of the symmetric group such that any non-linear irreducible character of the symmetric group vanishes on at least one of them.

We give a new formula for the irreducible spin characters of the symmetric groups. This formula is analogous to Stanley's character formula for the usual (linear) characters of the symmetric groups.

We consider the probability that a two-dimensional random walk starting from the origin never returns to the half-line $ (- \infty,0] \times {0}$ before time $n$. Let $X^{(1)}=(X_{1},X_{2})$ be the increment of the two-dimensional random…

We use the fact that certain cosets of the stabilizer of points are pairwise conjugate in a symmetric group $S_n$ in order to construct recurrence relations for enumerating certain subsets of $S_n$. Occasionally one can find `closed form'…

Assuming the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis, the authors study when a character sum over all n <= x is o(x); they show that this holds if log x / log log q -> infinity and q -> infinity (q is the size of the finite field).

We consider the problem of estimating the total probability of all symbols that appear with a given frequency in a string of i.i.d. random variables with unknown distribution. We focus on the regime in which the block length is large yet no…

We study the irreducibility and Galois group of random polynomials over function fields. We prove that a random polynomial $f=y^n+\sum_{i=0}^{n-1}a_i(x)y^i\in\mathbb F_q[x][y]$ with i.i.d coefficients $a_i$ taking values in the set…

Let $G$ be a simple algebraic group over the algebraic closure of $GF(p)$ ($p$ prime), and let $G(q)$ denote a corresponding finite group of Lie type over $GF(q)$, where $q$ is a power of $p$. Let $X$ be an irreducible subvariety of $G^r$…

Let $\Rx$ denote the ring of polynomials in $g$ freely non-commuting variables $x=(x_1,...,x_g)$. There is a natural involution * on $\Rx$ determined by $x_j^*=x_j$ and $(pq)^*=q^* p^*$ and a free polynomial $p\in\Rx$ is symmetric if it is…

If all of the entries of a large $S_n$ character table are covered up and you are allowed to uncover one entry at a time, then how can you quickly identify all of the indexing characters and conjugacy classes? We present a fast algorithmic…

An integer partition is called graphical if it is the degree sequence of a simple graph. We prove that the probability that a uniformly chosen partition of size $n$ is graphical decreases to zero faster than $n^{-.003}$, answering a…

We study largest singular values of large random matrices, each with mean of a fixed rank $K$. Our main result is a limit theorem as the number of rows and columns approach infinity, while their ratio approaches a positive constant. It…

The assumption that the elements of the cost matrix in the classical assignment problem are drawn independently from a standard Gaussian distribution motivates the study of a particular Gaussian field indexed by the symmetric permutation…

We study the probability that a random polynomial with integer coefficients is reducible when factored over the rational numbers. Using computer-generated data, we investigate a number of different models, including both monic and non-monic…

Let $P=(x_1,\ldots,x_n)$ be a population consisting of $n\ge 2$ real numbers whose sum is zero, and let $k <n$ be a positive integer. We sample $k$ elements from $P$ without replacement and denote by $X_P$ the sum of the elements in our…

We investigate symmetric quotient algebras of symmetric algebras, with an emphasis on finite group algebras over a complete discrete valuation ring ${\mathcal O}$. Using elementary methods, we show that if an ordinary irreducible character…

We prove that the function $\mathrm{P}_{\mathrm{v}}(G)$, measuring the proportion of the elements of a finite group $G$ that are zeros of irreducible characters of $G$, takes very sparse values in a large segment of the $[0,1]$ interval.