Two-Stage Allocations and the Double $Q$-Function

• Published in: The Electronic journal of combinatorics 2003-05, Vol.10 (1)
• Main Author: Agievich, Sergey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1077-8926; 1077-8926
• DOI: 10.37236/1714

Let $m+n$ particles be thrown randomly, independently of each other into $N$ cells, using the following two-stage procedure.1. The first $m$ particles are allocated equiprobably, that is, the probability of a particle falling into any particular cell is $1/N$. Let the $i$th cell contain $m_i$ particles on completion. Then associate with this cell the probability $a_i=m_i/m$ and withdraw the particles.2. The other $n$ particles are then allocated polynomially, that is, the probability of a particle falling into the $i$th cell is $a_i$.Let $\nu=\nu(m,N)$ be the number of the first particle that falls into a non-empty cell during the second stage. We give exact and asymptotic expressions for the expectation ${\bf E}\nu$.