English

Weighing the "Heaviest" Polya Urn

Probability 2014-07-01 v4

Abstract

In the classical Polya urn problem, one begins with dd bins, each containing one ball. Additional balls arrive one at a time, and the probability that an arriving ball is placed in a given bin is proportional to mγm^\gamma, where mm is the number of balls in that bin. In this note, we consider the case of γ=1\gamma = 1, which corresponds to a process of "proportional preferential attachment" and is a critical point with respect to the limit distribution of the fraction of balls in each bin. It is well known that for γ<1\gamma < 1 the fraction of balls in the "heaviest" bin (the bin with the most balls) tends to 1/d1/d, and for γ>1\gamma > 1 the fraction of balls in the "heaviest" bin tends to 11. To partially fill in the gap for γ=1\gamma = 1, we characterize the limit distribution of the fraction of balls in the "heaviest" bin for γ=1\gamma=1 by providing explicit analytical expressions for all its moments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.3127,
  title  = {Weighing the "Heaviest" Polya Urn},
  author = {Jeremy Chen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.3127},
  year   = {2014}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T03:07:36.392Z