Guillem Perarnau

Guillaume Chapuy, Guillem Perarnau

Given two functions $\mathbf{a}\!:\! [n] \rightarrow [n]$ and $\mathbf{b}\!:\! [n] \rightarrow [n]$ chosen uniformly at random, any word $w=w_1w_2\dots w_k\in \{a,b\}^k$ induces a random function $\mathbf{w}\!:\! [n] \rightarrow [n]$ by composition, i.e. $\mathbf{w}=ϕ_{w_k}\circ \dots \circ ϕ_{w_1}$ with $ϕ_a=\mathbf{a}$ and $ϕ_b=\mathbf{b}$. We study the following question: assuming $w$ is fixed but unknown, and $n$ goes to infinity, does one sample of $\mathbf{w}$ carry enough information to (partially) recover the word $w$ with good enough probability? We show that the length of $w$, and its exponent (largest $d$ such that $w={u}^d$ for some word ${u}$) can be recovered with high probability. We also prove that the random functions stemming from two different words are separated in total variation distance, provided that certain ``auto-correlation'' word-depending constant $c(w)$ is different for each of them. We give an explicit expression for $c(w)$ and conjecture that non-isomorphic words have different constants. We prove that this is the case assuming a major conjecture in transcendental number theory, Schanuel's conjecture.

François Durand, Élie de Panafieu, Guillem Perarnau

We study the limit CM rate of single-winner voting rules under Impartial Culture, defined as the probability that a preference profile is coalitionally manipulable in the limit of large electorates. For m = 3 candidates, Lepelley and Valognes [1999] derived a closed-form expression for Plurality with Runoff, or equivalently Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV), and showed that its limit CM rate is strictly below 1. This is remarkable because Kim and Roush [1996] established a limit of 1 for several major rules, including Maximin and all positional scoring rules except Veto. In this paper, we generalize the result of Lepelley and Valognes to any number of candidates m $\ge$ 4. We show that Plurality with Runoff has a limit CM rate equal to 1 for all m $\ge$ 4, whereas IRV retains a limit CM rate strictly below 1. To this end, we rely on the notion of Super Condorcet Winner, recently introduced by Durand [2025], which yields an upper bound on the CM rate of IRV. We prove that this bound is asymptotically tight and compute the probability that a Super Condorcet Winner exists, thereby obtaining the exact limit CM rate of IRV.