Approximating the limiting Quicksort distribution

dc.creatorFill, James Allen
dc.creatorJanson, Svante
dc.date2001-05-29
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T04:41:55Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T04:41:55Z
dc.descriptionThe limiting distribution of the normalized number of comparisons used by Quicksort to sort an array of n numbers is known to be the unique fixed point with zero mean of a certain distributional transformation S. We study the convergence to the limiting distribution of the sequence of distributions obtained by iterating the transformation S, beginning with a (nearly) arbitrary starting distribution. We demonstrate geometrically fast convergence for various metrics and discuss some implications for numerical calculations of the limiting Quicksort distribution. Finally, we give companion lower bounds which show that the convergence is not faster than geometric.
dc.description30 pages. See also http://www.mts.jhu.edu/~fill/ and http://www.math.uu.se/~svante/ . Submitted for publication in January, 2001
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/math/0105246
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/math/0105246
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/61557
dc.subjectProbability
dc.subject68W40 (primary), 68P10, 60E05, 60E10, 60F05 (secondary)
dc.titleApproximating the limiting Quicksort distribution
dc.typetext

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