Probabilistic parking functions

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Abstract: We consider the notion of classical parking functions by introducing randomness and a new parking protocol, as inspired by the work presented in the paper ``Parking Functions: Choose your own adventure, (arXiv:2001.04817) by Carlson, Christensen, Harris, Jones, and Rodr'iguez. Among our results, we prove that the probability of obtaining a parking function, from a length n preference vector, is independent of the probabilistic parameter p. We also explore the properties of a preference vector given that it is a parking function and discuss the effect of the probabilistic parameter p. Of special interest is when p=1/2, where we demonstrate a sharp transition in some parking statistics. We also present several interesting combinatorial consequences of the parking protocol. In particular, we provide a combinatorial interpretation for the array described in OEIS A220884 as the expected number of preference sequences with a particular property related to occupied parking spots, which solves an open problem of Novelli and Thibon posed in 2020 (arXiv:1209.5959). Lastly, we connect our results to other weighted phenomena in combinatorics and provide further directions for research.











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