Maths Olympiad Prep

Library / /884 of 1394

, 2022

Combinatorics Difficulty 5.4 AIME, harder Find the answer United States

Problem:
Let SS be a set of size 1111. A random 1212-tuple (s1,s2,,s12)(s_{1}, s_{2}, \ldots, s_{12}) of elements of SS is chosen uniformly at random. Moreover, let π:SS\pi: S \rightarrow S be a permutation of SS chosen uniformly at random. The probability that si+1π(si)s_{i+1} \neq \pi(s_{i}) for all 1i121 \leq i \leq 12 (where s13=s1s_{13}=s_{1}) can be written as ab\frac{a}{b} where aa and bb are relatively prime positive integers. Compute aa.

A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.

Solution

Solution:
Given a permutation π\pi, let ν(π)\nu(\pi) be the number of fixed points of π\pi. We claim that if we fix π\pi, then the probability that the condition holds, over the randomness of sis_{i}, is 1012+ν(π12)11112\frac{10^{12}+\nu\left(\pi^{12}\right)-1}{11^{12}}. Note that a point in SS is a fixed point of π12\pi^{12} if and only if the length of its cycle in π\pi is 1,2,3,41,2,3,4, or 66, which happens with probability 511\frac{5}{11}, as each cycle length from 11 to 1111 is equally likely. Therefore, the answer is
Eπ[1012+ν(π12)11112]=1012+41112 \mathbb{E}_{\pi}\left[\frac{10^{12}+\nu\left(\pi^{12}\right)-1}{11^{12}}\right]=\frac{10^{12}+4}{11^{12}}
Since 1111 does not divide 1012+410^{12}+4 this fraction is simplified.

We now prove the claim. Instead of counting (s1,s2,,s12)(s_{1}, s_{2}, \ldots, s_{12}), we count tuples (t1,t2,,t12)(t_{1}, t_{2}, \ldots, t_{12}) so that titi+1t_{i} \neq t_{i+1} for 1i111 \leq i \leq 11 and t1π12(t12)t_{1} \neq \pi^{12}\left(t_{12}\right). A bijection between the two is to let ti=πi(si)t_{i}=\pi^{-i}\left(s_{i}\right). To do this, fix a t1t_{1}. If t1t_{1} is a fixed point of π12\pi^{12}, we need to count the possibilities for t2,,t12t_{2}, \ldots, t_{12} so that t1t2,t2t3,,t12t1t_{1} \neq t_{2}, t_{2} \neq t_{3}, \ldots, t_{12} \neq t_{1}. This can be done via recursion: if aka_{k} is the number of t2,,tk+1t_{2}, \ldots, t_{k+1} so that t1t2,t2t3,,tk+1t1t_{1} \neq t_{2}, t_{2} \neq t_{3}, \ldots, t_{k+1} \neq t_{1}, then a0=0a_{0}=0, while for n0n \geq 0 we have an+1=9an+10(10nan)=10n+1ana_{n+1}=9 a_{n}+10\left(10^{n}-a_{n}\right)=10^{n+1}-a_{n}; thus a11=10111010++101=111(1012+10)a_{11}=10^{11}-10^{10}+\cdots+10^{1}=\frac{1}{11}\left(10^{12}+10\right). Similarly, if t1t_{1} is not a fixed point of π12\pi^{12}, there are 111(10121)\frac{1}{11}\left(10^{12}-1\right) ways. Therefore, number of possible (t1,,tn)(t_{1}, \ldots, t_{n}) is
101211(ν(π12)+(11ν(π12)))+111(10ν(π12)(11ν(π12)))=1012+ν(π12)1 \frac{10^{12}}{11}\left(\nu\left(\pi^{12}\right)+\left(11-\nu\left(\pi^{12}\right)\right)\right)+\frac{1}{11}\left(10 \nu\left(\pi^{12}\right)-\left(11-\nu\left(\pi^{12}\right)\right)\right)=10^{12}+\nu\left(\pi^{12}\right)-1
as desired.

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Source: MathNet, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty) added by this project.