We study the convergence rate to normal limit law for the space requirement of random m-ary search trees. While it is known that the random variable is asymptotically normally distributed for 3 m 26 and that the limit law does not exist for m ? 26, we show that the convergence rate is O(n ) for 3 m 19 and is O(n ), where 4=3 ! ff ! 3=2 is a parameter depending on m for 20 m 26. Our approach is based on a refinement to the method of moments and applicable to other recursive random variables; we briefly mention the applications to quicksort proper and the generalized quicksort of Hennequin, where more phase changes are given. These results provide natural, concrete examples for which the Berry-Esseen bounds are not necessarily proportional to the reciprocal of the standard deviation. Local limit theorems are also derived. Abbreviated title. Phase changes in search trees.

Limit laws are proven by the contraction method for random vectors of a recursive nature as they arise as parameters of combinatorial structures such as random trees or recursive algorithms, where we use the Zolotarev metric. In comparison to previous applications of this method, a general transfer theorem is derived which allows us to establish a limit law on the basis of the recursive structure and to use the asymptotics of the first and second moments of the sequence. In particular, a general asymptotic normality result is obtained by this theorem which typically cannot be handled by the more common ℓ2 metrics. As applications we derive quite automatically many asymptotic limit results ranging from the size of tries or m-ary search trees and path lengths in digital structures to mergesort and parameters of random recursive trees, which were previously shown by different methods one by one. We also obtain a related local density approximation result as well as a global approximation result. For the proofs of these results we establish that a smoothed density distance as well as a smoothed total variation distance can be estimated from above by the Zolotarev metric, which is the main tool in this article.

Cauchy-Euler differential equations surfaced naturally in a number of sorting and searching problems, notably in quicksort and binary search trees and their variations. Asymptotics of coefficients of functions satisfying such equations has been studied for several special cases in the literature. We study in this paper the most general framework for Cauchy-Euler equations and propose an asymptotic theory that covers almost all applications where Cauchy-Euler equations appear. Our approach is very general and requires almost no background on differential equations. Indeed the whole theory can be stated in terms of recurrences instead of functions. Old and new applications of the theory are given. New phase changes of limit laws of new variations of quicksort are systematically derived. We apply our theory to about a dozen of diverse examples in quicksort, binary search trees, urn models, increasing trees, etc.

Fringe analysis is a technique used to study the average behavior of search trees. In this paper we survey the main results regarding this technique, and we improve a previous asymptotic theorem. At the same time we present new developments and applications of the theory which allow improvements in several bounds on the behavior of search trees. Our examples cover binary search trees, AVL trees, 2-3 trees, and B-trees. Categories and Subject Descriptors: F.2.2 [Analysis of Algorithms and Problem Complexity ]: Nonnumerical Algorithms and Problems -- computations on discrete structures; sorting and searching; E.1 [Data Structures]; trees. Contents 1 Introduction 2 2 The Theory of Fringe Analysis 4 3 Weakly Closed Collections 9 4 Including the Level Information 11 5 Fringe Analysis, Markov Chains, and Urn Processes 13 This work was partially funded by Research Grant FONDECYT 93-0765. e-mail: rbaeza@dcc.uchile.cl 1 Introduction Search trees are one of the most used data structures t...

Limit laws are proven by the contraction method for random vectors of a recursive nature as they arise as parameters of combinatorial structures such as random trees or recursive algorithms, where we use the Zolotarev metric. In comparison to previous applications of this method a general transfer theorem is derived, which allows to establish a limit law on the basis of the recursive structure and using the asymptotics of the first and second moments of the sequence. In particular a general asymptotic normality result is obtained by this theorem, which typically cannot be handled by the more common ` 2-metrics. As applications we derive quite automatically many asymptotic normality results ranging from the size of tries or m-ary search trees and path lengths in digital structures to mergesort and parameters of random recursive trees, which were previously shown by different methods one by one. We also obtain a related local density approximation result as well as a global approximation result. For the proof of these we establish that a smoothed density distance as well as a smoothed total variation distance can be estimated from above by the Zolotarev metric which is the main tool in this paper.

We take a multivariate view of digital search trees by studying the number of nodes of di#erent types that may coexist in a bucket digital search tree as it grows under an arbitrary memory management system. We obtain the mean of each type of node, as well as the entire covariance matrix between types, whereupon weak laws of large numbers follow from the orders of magnitude (the norming constants include oscillating functions). The result can be easily interpreted for practical systems like paging, heaps and UNIX's buddy system. The covariance results call for developing a Mellin convolution method, where convoluted numerical sequences are handled by convolutions of their Mellin transforms. Furthermore, we use a method of moments to show that the distribution is asymptotically normal. The method of proof is of some generality and is applicable to other parameters like path length and size in random tries and Patricia tries.

We take a multivariate view of digital search trees by studying the number of nodes of di#erent types that may coexist in a bucket digital search tree as it grows under an arbitrary memory management system. We obtain the mean of each type of node, as well as the entire covariance matrix between types, whereupon weak laws of large numbers follow from the orders of magnitude (the norming constants include oscillating functions). The result can be easily interpreted for practical systems like paging, heaps and UNIX's buddy system. The covariance results call for developing a Mellin convolution method, where convoluted numerical sequences are handled by convolutions of their Mellin transforms. Furthermore, we use a method of moments to show that the distribution is asymptotically normal. The method of proof is of some generality and is applicable to other parameters like path length and size in random tries and Patricia tries.