Asymptotics of the number partitioning distribution

For a system of identical Bose particles sitting on integer energy levels, we give sharp estimates for the convergence of the sequence of occupation numbers to the Bose-Einstein distribution and for the Bose condensation effect.

We prove that the generating polynomials of partitions of an $n$-element set into non-singleton blocks, counted by the number of blocks, have real roots only and we study the asymptotic behavior of the leftmost roots. We apply this information to find the most likely number of blocks.

Recursion formulae of the N-particle partition function, the occupation numbers and its fluctuations are given using the single-particle partition function. Exact results are presented for fermions and bosons in a common one-dimensional harmonic oscillator potential, for the three-dimensional harmonic oscillator approximations are tested. Applications to excited nuclei and Bose-Einstein condensation are discussed.

Consider N equally-spaced points on a circle of circumference N. Choose at random n points out of $N$ on this circle and append clockwise an arc of integral length k to each such point. The resulting random set is made of a random number of connected components. Questions such as the evaluation of the probability of random covering and parking configurations, number and length of the gaps are addressed. They are the discrete versions of similar problems raised in the continuu...

We consider a family of distributions on spatial random partitions that provide a coupling between different models of interest: the ideal Bose gas; the zero-range process; particle clustering; and spatial permutations. These distributions are invariant for a "chain of Chinese restaurants" stochastic process. We obtain results for the distribution of the size of the largest component.

These are (not updated) notes from the lectures I gave at the NATO ASI ``Symmetric Functions 2001'' at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge (June 25 -- July 6, 2001). Their goal is an informal introduction to asymptotic combinatorics related to partitions.

The statistical physics approach to the number partioning problem, a classical NP-hard problem, is both simple and rewarding. Very basic notions and methods from statistical mechanics are enough to obtain analytical results for the phase boundary that separates the ``easy-to-solve'' from the ``hard-to-solve'' phase of the NPP as well as for the probability distributions of the optimal and sub-optimal solutions. In addition, it can be shown that solving a number partioning pro...

Let $F_n(x)$ be the partition polynomial $\sum_{k=1}^n p_k(n) x^k$ where $p_k(n)$ is the number of partitions of $n$ with $k$ parts. We emphasize the computational experiments using degrees up to $70,000$ to discover the asymptotics of these polynomials. Surprisingly, the asymptotics of $F_n(x)$ have two scales of orders $n$ and $\sqrt{n}$ and in three different regimes inside the unit disk. Consequently, the zeros converge to network of curves inside the unit disk given in t...

Let $p(n)$ denote the partition function. In this paper our main goal is to derive an asymptotic expansion up to order $N$ (for any fixed positive integer $N$) along with estimates for error bounds for the shifted quotient of the partition function, namely $p(n+k)/p(n)$ with $k\in \mathbb{N}$, which generalizes a result of Gomez, Males, and Rolen. In order to do so, we derive asymptotic expansions with error bounds for the shifted version $p(n+k)$ and the multiplicative inver...

A convenient way to calculate $N$-particle quantum partition functions is by confining the particles in a weak harmonic potential instead of using a finite box or periodic boundary conditions. There is, however, a slightly different connection between partition functions and thermodynamic quantities with such volume regularization. This is made explicit, and its origin explained to be due to the system having a space-varying density in an external potential. Beyond perturbati...