Asymptotics for the distributions of subtableaux in Young and up-down tableaux (Q2380206)

Summary: Let \(\mu\) be a partition of \(k\), and \(T\) a standard Young tableau of shape \(\mu\). McKay, Morse, and Wilf show that the probability that a randomly chosen Young tableau of \(N\) cells contains \(T\) as a subtableau is asymptotic to \(f^{\mu}/k!\) as \(N\) goes to infinity, where \(f^{\mu}\) is the number of all tableaux of shape \(\mu\). We use a random-walk argument to show that the analogous asymptotic probability for randomly chosen Young tableaux with at most \(n\) rows is proportional to \[ \prod_{1\leq i<j\leq n}\left((\mu_i - i) - (\mu_j - j)\right); \] as \(n\) goes to infinity, the probabilities approach \(f^{\mu}/k!\) as expected. We have a similar formula for up-down tableaux; the probability approaches \(f^{\mu}/k!\) if \(\mu\) has \(k\) cells and thus the up-down tableau is actually a standard tableau, and approaches 0 if \(\mu\) has fewer than \(k\) cells.