arXiv Open Access 2023

On a generalisation of the coupon collector problem

Siva Athreya Satyaki Mukherjee Soumendu Sundar Mukherjee
Lihat Sumber

Abstrak

We consider a generalisation of the classical coupon collector problem. We define a super-coupon to be any $s$-subset of a universe of $n$ coupons. In each round, a random $r$-subset from the universe is drawn and all its $s$-subsets are marked as collected. We show that the time to collect all super-coupons is $\binom{r}{s}^{-1}\binom{n}{s} \log \binom{n}{s}(1 + o(1))$ on average and has a Gumbel limit after a suitable normalisation. In a similar vein, we show that for any $α\in (0, 1)$, the expected time to collect $(1 - α)$ proportion of all super-coupons is $\binom{r}{s}^{-1}\binom{n}{s} \log \big(\frac{1}α\big)(1 + o(1))$. The $r = s$ case of this model is equivalent to the classical coupon collector model. We also consider a temporally dependent model where the $r$-subsets are drawn according to the following Markovian dynamics: the $r$-subset at round $k + 1$ is formed by replacing a random coupon from the $r$-subset drawn at round $k$ with another random coupon from outside this $r$-subset. We link the time it takes to collect all super-coupons in the $r = s$ case of this model to the cover time of random walk on a certain finite regular graph and conjecture that in general, it takes $\frac{r}{s} \binom{r}{s}^{-1}\binom{n}{s}\log\binom{n}{s}(1 + o(1))$ time on average to collect all super-coupons.

Topik & Kata Kunci

Penulis (3)

S

Siva Athreya

S

Satyaki Mukherjee

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Soumendu Sundar Mukherjee

Format Sitasi

Athreya, S., Mukherjee, S., Mukherjee, S.S. (2023). On a generalisation of the coupon collector problem. https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.01145

Akses Cepat

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Tahun Terbit
2023
Bahasa
en
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arXiv
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Open Access ✓