English

A local limit theorem for Quicksort key comparisons via multi-round smoothing

Probability 2017-01-17 v1

Abstract

As proved by R\'egnier and R\"osler, the number of key comparisons required by the randomized sorting algorithm QuickSort to sort a list of nn distinct items (keys) satisfies a global distributional limit theorem. Fill and Janson proved results about the limiting distribution and the rate of convergence, and used these to prove a result part way towards a corresponding local limit theorem. In this paper we use a multi-round smoothing technique to prove the full local limit theorem.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1701.04365,
  title  = {A local limit theorem for Quicksort key comparisons via multi-round smoothing},
  author = {Béla Bollobás and James Allen Fill and Oliver Riordan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1701.04365},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

29 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T17:51:23.168Z