Stein's method and the modular behavior of Eulerian numbers

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Fulman, Jason, Röllin, Adrian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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_version_ 1866916002905718784
author Fulman, Jason
Röllin, Adrian
author_facet Fulman, Jason
Röllin, Adrian
contents The Eulerian number A(n,k) counts permutations of n symbols with exactly k descents. Motivated by problems in cryptography, several authors have studied the proportion of permutations whose number of descents lies in a fixed congruence class mod b, and its convergence to 1/b. We give two proofs of explicit error bounds for this convergence, one using Stein's method for translated Poisson approximation and one using Fourier analysis. The error bound using Fourier analysis yields exponentially decaying error bounds for fixed b, which generalises the already known case b=2; however, it makes use of a special representation due to Tanny (1973). In contrast, Stein's method only yields polynomially decaying error bounds, but we hope it has potential for generalisation beyond the present setting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_21464
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Stein's method and the modular behavior of Eulerian numbers
Fulman, Jason
Röllin, Adrian
Probability
Combinatorics
Primary 60C05, Secondary 60F05, 05A05
The Eulerian number A(n,k) counts permutations of n symbols with exactly k descents. Motivated by problems in cryptography, several authors have studied the proportion of permutations whose number of descents lies in a fixed congruence class mod b, and its convergence to 1/b. We give two proofs of explicit error bounds for this convergence, one using Stein's method for translated Poisson approximation and one using Fourier analysis. The error bound using Fourier analysis yields exponentially decaying error bounds for fixed b, which generalises the already known case b=2; however, it makes use of a special representation due to Tanny (1973). In contrast, Stein's method only yields polynomially decaying error bounds, but we hope it has potential for generalisation beyond the present setting.
title Stein's method and the modular behavior of Eulerian numbers
topic Probability
Combinatorics
Primary 60C05, Secondary 60F05, 05A05
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.21464