Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1707.01931

Lattice paths with catastrophes

Cyril Banderier·Michael Wallner
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

In queuing theory, it is usual to have some models with a "reset" of the queue. In terms of lattice paths, it is like having the possibility of jumping from any altitude to zero. These objects have the interesting feature that they do not have the same intuitive probabilistic behaviour as classical Dyck paths (the typical properties of which are strongly related to Brownian motion theory), and this article quantifies some relations between these two types of paths. We give a bijection with some other lattice paths and a link with a continued fraction expansion. Furthermore, we prove several formulae for related combinatorial structures conjectured in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Thanks to the kernel method and via analytic combinatorics, we provide the enumeration and limit laws of these "lattice paths with catastrophes" for any finite set of jumps. We end with an algorithm to generate such lattice paths uniformly at random.

Explore related subjects

math.COcs.DMmath.PR

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Cyril Banderier, Michael Wallner. 2017-09-19. Lattice paths with catastrophes. https://doi.org/10.23638/dmtcs-19-1-23

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Small doublings in abelian groups of prime power torsion

Let $A$ be a subset of $G$, where $G$ is a finite abelian group of torsion $r$. It was conjectured by Ruzsa that if $|A+A|\leq K|A|$, then $A$ is contained in a coset of $G$ of size at most $r^{CK}|A|$ for some constant $C$. The case $r=2$ received considerable attention in a sequence of papers, and was resolved by Green and Tao. Recently, Even-Zohar and Lovett settled the case when $r$ is a prime. In this paper, we confirm the conjecture when $r$ is a power of prime. In particular, the bound we obtain is tight.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Graph Polynomial for Colored Embedded Graphs: A Topological Approach

We study finite graphs embedded in oriented surfaces by associating a polynomial to it. The tools used in developing a theory of such graph polynomials are algebraic topological while the polynomial itself is inspired from ideas arising in physics. We also analyze a variant of these polynomials for colored embedded graphs. This is used to describe the change in the polynomial under basic graph theoretic operations. We conclude with several applications of this polynomial including detection of certain classes of graphs and the connection of this polynomial with topological entanglement entropy.

math.CO↗
arXiv2026

Schur positivity of the spiders $S(a,2,1)$ and $S(a,4,1)$ via noncommutative symmetric functions

We prove that the spider graphs $S(a,2,1)$ and $S(a,4,1)$ are Schur positive for all integers $a\ge1$. Together with the known $e$-positivity results, this completes the $e$- and Schur-positivity classification of both families. Our approach uses noncommutative symmetric functions, including a particularly simple ribbon expansion for the path lift with coefficients given by powers of two. We give a new proof of the Shareshian--Wachs path formula at $t=1$ and construct corresponding lifts for spiders. The Littlewood--Richardson rule converts their ribbon expansions into a general Schur-coefficient formula in terms of weighted Yamanouchi words. Mass-preserving multi-injections and a reduction to finitely many inequalities in degree $10$ then prove the required positivity; exact computer verification of these inequalities completes the proof in full generality.

math.CO↗