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Gaussian fluctuations for the two-urn model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2024

Konrad Kolesko*
Affiliation:
University of Wrocław
Ecaterina Sava-Huss*
Affiliation:
Universität Innsbruck
*
*Postal Address: Department of Mathematics, University of Wrocław, 50-383 Wrocław, Poland. Email address: Konrad.Kolesko@math.uni.wroc.pl
**Postal Address: Institut für Mathematik, Universität Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria. Email address: Ecaterina.Sava-Huss@uibk.ac.at
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Abstract

We introduce a modification of the generalized Pólya urn model containing two urns, and we study the number of balls $B_j(n)$ of a given color $j\in\{1,\ldots,J\}$ added to the urns after n draws, where $J\in\mathbb{N}$. We provide sufficient conditions under which the random variables $(B_j(n))_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$, properly normalized and centered, converge weakly to a limiting random variable. The result reveals a similar trichotomy as in the classical case with one urn, one of the main differences being that in the scaling we encounter 1-periodic continuous functions. Another difference in our results compared to the classical urn models is that the phase transition of the second-order behavior occurs at $\sqrt{\rho}$ and not at $\rho/2$, where $\rho$ is the dominant eigenvalue of the mean replacement matrix.

Information

Type
Original Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Applied Probability Trust
Figure 0

Figure 1. The model with two alternating urns and deterministic replacement matrix after $n=4$ draws.