The siblings of the coupon collector

DOI10.1137/S0040585X97T988733zbMATH Open1405.60017arXiv1412.4346OpenAlexW2963220998WikidataQ129385635 ScholiaQ129385635MaRDI QIDQ4580423FDOQ4580423

Authors: Aristides V. Doumas, Vassilis G. Papanicolaou 

Publication date: 15 August 2018

Published in: Theory of Probability & Its Applications (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The following variant of the collector's problem has attracted considerable attention relatively recently (see, e.g., N. Pintacuda 1980, D. Foata H. Guo-Niu and B. Lass 2001, D. Foata and D. Zeilberger 2003, I. Adler, S. Oren and S. Ross 2003, and S. Ross 2010): There is one main collector who collects coupons. Assume there are $N$ different types of coupons with, in general, unequal occurring probabilities. When the main collector gets a "double", she gives it to her older brother; when this brother gets a "double", he gives it to the next brother, and so on. Hence, when the main collector completes her collection, the album of the $j$-th sibling, $j=2,3,dots$, will still have $U_j^N$ empty spaces. In this article we develop techniques of computing asymptotics of the average $E[U_j^N]$ of $U_j^N$ as $Nightarrowinfty,$ for a large class of families of coupon probabilities. We also give various illustrative examples.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.4346

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zbMATH Keywords

hyperharmonic numberurn problemgeneralized Zipf lawgeneralized coupon collector's problemLambert serie

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial probability (60C05)

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Cited In (8)

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• Uniform versus Zipf distribution in a mixing collection process
• Collecting coupons is faster with friends
• On the minimum of independent collecting processes via the Stirling numbers of the second kind
• The logarithmic Zipf law in a general urn problem
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• The coupon-collector's problem revisited
• Some New Aspects of the Coupon Collector's Problem

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