Sampling from a mixture of different groups of coupons

Publication date 24 February 2021

Abstract: A collector samples coupons with replacement from a pool containing

g

extit{uniform} groups of coupons, where "uniform group" means that all coupons in the group are equally likely to occur. For each

j = 1, d o t s, g

let

T_{j}

be the number of trials needed to detect Group

j

, namely to collect all

M_{j}

coupons belonging to it at least once. We derive an explicit formula for the probability that the

l

-th group is the first one to be detected (symbolically,

). We also compute the asymptotics of this probability in the case

g = 2

as the number of coupons grows to infinity in a certain manner. Then, in the case of two groups we focus on

T := T_{1} v e e T_{2}

, i.e. the number of trials needed to collect all coupons of the pool (at least once). We determine the asymptotics of

E [T]

and

V [T]

, as well as the limiting distribution of

T

(appropriately normalized) as the number of coupons becomes very large.

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