A central limit theorem for sums of correlated products (Q4354866)

A simple random placement of particles on the nonnegative integers is considered. A coin is tossed. At each (successive) step a particle is placed at the current position, if the outcome of the toss is head, and otherwise move one position to the right. The spacing between the \(i\)th and \((i+1)\)st particle is denoted by \(y_i\) and the number of particles at position \(i\) is denoted by \(x_i\). This problem is formulated also in terms of a certain random walk. The problem is connected with different bootstrap procedures. Denote \(X_m: =x_0 +\dots+x_m\) and \(Y_m: =y_0 +\dots+y_m\). The main result (theorem) of the paper is: \[ \sum^m_{i=0} \bigl(x_iy_i -(X_m \wedge Y_m) \bigr)/ \sqrt {6m} @>{\mathcal D}>> N(0,1). \] The theorem is proved using the central limit theorem for martingales.