Infinite Boltzmann Samplers and Applications to Branching Processes

National audienceIn this short note, we extend the Boltzmann model for combinatorial random sampling [8] to allow for infinite size objects; in particular, this extension now fully includes Galton-Watson processes. We then illustrate our idea with two examples, one of which is the generation of prefixes of infinite Cayley trees

Random generation of finitely generated subgroups of a free group

We give an efficient algorithm to randomly generate finitely generated subgroups of a given size, in a finite rank free group. Here, the size of a subgroup is the number of vertices of its representation by a reduced graph such as can be obtained by the method of Stallings foldings. Our algorithm randomly generates a subgroup of a given size n, according to the uniform distribution over size n subgroups. In the process, we give estimates of the number of size n subgroups, of the average rank of size n subgroups, and of the proportion of such subgroups that have finite index. Our algorithm has average case complexity \O(n) in the RAM model and \O(n^2\log^2n) in the bitcost model