Singularly perturbed discrete differential equations

Abstract

Discrete differential equations appear most prominently in planar map and lattice path enumeration. In this work we consider discrete differential equations with an additional parameter $x$, where the order of the equation is $1$ for $x=0$ but $k>1$ for $x\ne 0$. We call such equations singularly perturbed. The main contribution of this work is to show that there is actually a smooth transition under certain natural assumptions. As an application of this result we consider pattern counts in triangular planar maps and derive a central limit theorem for patterns which cannot self-intersect.