Related papers: The exact power law and Pascal pyramid
Why does Zipf's law give a good description of data from seemingly completely unrelated phenomena? Here it is argued that the reason is that they can all be described as outcomes of a ubiquitous random group division: the elements can be…
Given positive real numbers, we prove two inequalities involving their potential energy and their power sums. We also prove an inequality involving the energy and the discriminant and apply it to deduce a result on totally positive…
When the probability of measuring a particular value of some quantity varies inversely as a power of that value, the quantity is said to follow a power law, also known variously as Zipf's law or the Pareto distribution. Power laws appear…
Let $ \nu $ be a probability distribution over the linear semi-group $ \mathrm{End}(E) $ for $ E $ a finite dimensional vector space over a locally compact field. We assume that $ \nu $ is proximal, strongly irreducible and that $…
A power-free language is characterized by the number of symbols used and a limit on how many times a block of symbols can repeat consecutively. For certain values of these parameters, it is known that the number of legal words grows…
We show that for every $r \geq 1$, and all $r$ distinct (sufficiently large) primes $p_1,..., p_r > p_0(r)$, there exist infinitely many integers $n$ such that ${2n \choose n}$ is divisible by these primes to only low multiplicity. From a…
The greatest power of a prime $p$ dividing the natural number $n$ will be denoted by $n_p$. Let $Ind_G(g)=|G:C_G(g)|$. Suppose that $G$ is a finite group and $p$ is a prime. We prove that if there exists an integer $\alpha>0$ such that…
Probabilistic automata are an extension of nondeterministic finite automata in which transitions are annotated with probabilities. Despite its simplicity, this model is very expressive and many of the associated algorithmic questions are…
In this work we present concentration inequalities for the sum $S_n$ of independent integer-valued not necessary indentically distributed random variables, where each variable has tail function that can be bounded by some power function…
Let $X_1$ and $N\ge 0$ be integer valued power law random variables. For a randomly stopped sum $S_N=X_1+\cdots+X_N$ of independent and identically distributed copies of $X_1$ we establish a first order asymptotics of the local…
Probabilistic B\"uchi Automata (PBA) are randomized, finite state automata that process input strings of infinite length. Based on the threshold chosen for the acceptance probability, different classes of languages can be defined. In this…
Let $\{p_j(n)\}_{j=1}^{\omega(n)}$ denote the increasing sequence of distinct prime factors of an integer $n$. For $z\geqslant 0$, let $G(n;z)$ denote the number of those indexes $j$ such that $p_{j+1}(n)>p_j(n)^{\exp z}$. We show uniform…
Consider a discrete-time one-dimensional supercritical branching random walk. We study the probability that there exists an infinite ray in the branching random walk that always lies above the line of slope $\gamma-\epsilon$, where $\gamma$…
We consider the infinite one-sided sequence generated by the period-doubling substitution $\sigma(a,b)=(ab,aa)$, denoted by $\mathbb{D}$. Since $\mathbb{D}$ is uniformly recurrent, each factor $\omega$ appears infinite many times in the…
Let $k\geq 2$ be a fixed natural number. We establish the existence of infinitely many pairs of consecutive primes $p_n$, $p_{n+1}$ satisfying $$ p_{n+1}-p_n\geq c\:\frac{\log p_n\: \log_2 p_n\: \log_4 p_n}{\log_3 p_n}\:,$$ with $c$ being a…
For a word $\pi$ and integer $i$, we define $L^i(\pi)$ to be the length of the longest subsequence of the form $i(i+1)\cdots j$, and we let $L(\pi):=\max_i L^i(\pi)$. In this paper we estimate the expected values of $L^1(\pi)$ and $L(\pi)$…
Zipf's law states that sequential frequencies of words in a text correspond to a power function. Its probabilistic model is an infinite urn scheme with asymptotically power distribution. The exponent of this distribution must be estimated.…
An important question for a probabilistic program is whether the probability mass of all its diverging runs is zero, that is that it terminates "almost surely". Proving that can be hard, and this paper presents a new method for doing so; it…
We obtain new bounds on complete rational exponential sums with sparse polynomials modulo a prime, under some mild conditions on the degrees of the monomials of such polynomials. These bounds, when they apply, give explicit versions of a…
Take a centered random walk S_n and consider the sequence of its partial sums A_n = S_1 + ... + S_n. Suppose S_1 is in the domain of normal attraction of an \alpha-stable law with 1 < \alpha <= 2. Assuming that S_1 is either…