On the locality of the Prüfer code

Publication date 7 April 2009

Published in The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0802.3514, https://eudml.org/doc/117294, http://www.emis.de/journals/EJC/Volume_16/Abstracts/v16i1r10.html

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Probabilistic methods in extremal combinatorics, including polynomial methods (combinatorial Nullstellensatz, etc.) (05D40)

Abstract: The Pr"ufer code is a bijection between trees on the vertex set

[n]

and strings on the set

[n]

of length

n - 2

(Pr"ufer strings of order

n

). In this paper we examine the `locality' properties of the Pr"ufer code, i.e. the effect of changing an element of the Pr"ufer string on the structure of the corresponding tree. Our measure for the distance between two trees

T, T^{*}

is

D e l t a (T, T^{*}) = n - 1 - | E (T) c a p E (T^{*}) |

. We randomly mutate the

m u

th element of the Pr"ufer string of the tree

T

, changing it to the tree

T^{*}

, and we asymptotically estimate the probability that this results in a change of

e l l

edges, i.e.

P (D e l t a = e l l | m u) .

We find that P(Delta=ell | mu)

i s o n t h e o r d e r o f

n^{-1/3+o(1)}

f o r a n y i n t e g e r

ell>1,

a n d t h a t

P(Delta=1 | mu)=(1-mu/n)^2+o(1).

Delta(T,T^*)=1

) i s

1/3.$

Review text

Summary: The Prüfer code is a bijection between trees on the vertex set $[n]$ and strings on the set $[n]$ of length $n-2$ (Prüfer strings of order $n$). In this paper we examine the `locality' properties of the Prüfer code, i.e. the effect of changing an element of the Prüfer string on the structure of the corresponding tree. Our measure for the distance between two trees $T$ and $T^*$ is $\Delta(T,T^*)=n-1-| E(T)\cap E(T^*)|$. We randomly mutate the $\mu$th element of the Prüfer string of the tree $T$, changing it to the tree $T^*$, and we asymptotically estimate the probability that this results in a change of $\ell$ edges, i.e. $P(\Delta=\ell\, | \, \mu)$. We find that $P(\Delta=\ell\, | \, \mu)$ is on the order of $ n^{-1/3+o(1)}$ for any integer $\ell>1,$ and that $P(\Delta=1\, | \, \mu) = (1-\mu/n)^2+o(1)$. This result implies that the probability of a `perfect' mutation in the Prüfer code (one for which $\Delta(T,T^*)=1$) is $1/3.$

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