We consider staircase polygons, counted by perimeter and sums of k-th powers
of their diagonal lengths, k being a positive integer. We derive limit
distributions for these parameters in the limit of large perimeter and compare
the results to Monte-Carlo simulations of self-avoiding polygons. We also
analyse staircase polygons, counted by width and sums of powers of their column
heights, and we apply our methods to related models of directed walks.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures; to appear in proceedings of Counting Complexity:
An International Workshop On Statistical Mechanics And Combinatorics, 10-15
July 2005, Queensland, Australi