On the number of transversals in random trees

Abstract

We study transversals in random trees with n vertices asymptotically as n tends to infinity. Our investigation treats the average number of transversals of fixed size, the size of a random transversal as well as the probability that a random subset of the vertex set of a tree is a transversal for the class of simply generated trees and for Pólya trees. The last parameter was already studied by Devroye for simply generated trees. We offer an alternative proof based on generating functions and singularity analysis and extend the result to Pólya trees.

Keywords

• simply generated trees
• pólya trees
• singularity analysis
• functional equations
• [info.info-ds] computer science [cs]/data structures and algorithms [cs.ds]
• [info.info-dm] computer science [cs]/discrete mathematics [cs.dm]
• [math.math-co] mathematics [math]/combinatorics [math.co]
• [info.info-cg] computer science [cs]/computational geometry [cs.cg]