Phase transition in random contingency tables with non-uniform margins

Abstract

For parameters $n,\delta ,B,$ and $C$, let $X=(X_{k\ell })$ be the random uniform contingency table whose first $\lfloor n^{\delta }\rfloor$ rows and columns have margin $\lfloor BCn\rfloor$ and the last $n$ rows and columns have margin $\lfloor Cn\rfloor$. For every $0<\delta <1$, we establish a sharp phase transition of the limiting distribution of each entry of $X$ at the critical value $B_c=1+\sqrt{1+1/C}$. In particular, for $1/2<\delta <1$, we show that the distribution of each entry converges to a geometric distribution in total variation distance, whose mean depends sensitively on whether $B<B_c$ or $B>B_c$. Our main result shows that $\mathbb{E}[X_{11}]$ is uniformly bounded for $B<B_c$, but has sharp asymptotic $C(B-B_c)n^{1-\delta }$ for $B>B_c$. We also establish a strong law of large numbers for the row sums in top right and top left blocks.

24 pages, 4 figures. Earlier version is accepted for publication in Transactions of the AMS. This version contains an appendix on asymptotic independence of the entries