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ASYMPTOTIC RESULTS FOR THE NUMBER OF PATHS IN A GRID

Part of: Combinatorics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2011

ALOIS PANHOLZER  and
HELMUT PRODINGER
ALOIS PANHOLZER
Affiliation:
Institute of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry, Vienna University of Technology, Wiedner Haupstr. 8-10/104, 1040 Wien, Austria (email: [email protected])
HELMUT PRODINGER*
Affiliation:
Mathematics Department, Stellenbosch University, 7602 Stellenbosch, South Africa (email: [email protected])
*
✉For correspondence; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

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In two recent papers, Albrecht and White [‘Counting paths in a grid’, Austral. Math. Soc. Gaz.35 (2008), 43–48] and Hirschhorn [‘Comment on “Counting paths in a grid”’, Austral. Math. Soc. Gaz.36 (2009), 50–52] considered the problem of counting the total number Pm,n of certain restricted lattice paths in an m×n grid of cells, which appeared in the context of counting train paths through a rail network. Here we give a precise study of the asymptotic behaviour of these numbers for the square grid, extending the results of Hirschhorn, and furthermore provide an asymptotic equivalent of these numbers for a rectangular grid with a constant proportion α=m/n between the side lengths.

Keywords

restricted lattice pathsasymptotic enumerationdiagonalization methodsaddle point method

MSC classification

Secondary: 05A16: Asymptotic enumeration
Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the Australian Mathematical Society , Volume 85 , Issue 3 , June 2012 , pp. 446 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc. 2011

References

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