The height of the Lyndon tree

Abstract

We consider the set $\mathcal{L}_n<$ of n-letters long Lyndon words on the alphabet $\mathcal{A}=\{0,1\}$. For a random uniform element ${L_n}$ of the set $\mathcal{L}_n$, the binary tree $\mathfrak{L} (L_n)$ obtained by successive standard factorization of $L_n$ and of the factors produced by these factorization is the $\textit{Lyndon tree}$ of $L_n$. We prove that the height $H_n$ of $\mathfrak{L} (L_n)$ satisfies $\lim \limits_n \frac{H_n}{\mathsf{ln}n}=\Delta$, in which the constant $\Delta$ is solution of an equation involving large deviation rate functions related to the asymptotics of Eulerian numbers ($\Delta ≃5.092\dots $). The convergence is the convergence in probability of random variables.

Keywords

• yule process
• branching random walk
• binary search tree
• galton-watson tree
• lyndon tree
• lyndon word
• [info.info-dm] computer science [cs]/discrete mathematics [cs.dm]