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The Necklace Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

Colin Mallows*
Affiliation:
Avaya Labs
Larry Shepp*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
*
Postal address: Avaya Labs, 233 Mt. Airy Road, Basking Ridge, NJ 07920, USA. Email address: colinm@research.avayalabs.com
∗∗ Postal address: Department of Statistics, 501 Hill Center, Busch Campus, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019, USA. Email address: shepp@stat.rutgers.edu
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Abstract

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Start with a necklace consisting of one white bead and one black bead, and add new beads one at a time by inserting each new bead between a randomly chosen adjacent pair of old beads, with the proviso that the new bead will be white if and only if both beads of the adjacent pair are black. Let W n denote the number of white beads when the total number of beads is n. We show that EW n = n/3 and, with c 2 = 2/45, that (W n n/3) / cnis asymptotically standard normal. We find that, for all r ≥ 1 and n > 2r, the rth cumulant of the distribution of W n is of the form n h r . We find the expected numbers of gaps of given length between white beads, and examine the asymptotics of the longest gaps.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 2008