[comp.theory] Diameter of a DAG

collberg@dna.lth.se (Christian S. Collberg) (04/17/91)

I need to know the average diameter of a DAG of n nodes.
Can someone provide a reference?

Thanks!
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Christian.Collberg@dna.lu.se

bdm659@csc.anu.edu.au (04/17/91)

In article <1991Apr17.075727.9539@lth.se>, collberg@dna.lth.se (Christian S. Collberg) writes:
> I need to know the average diameter of a DAG of n nodes.
> Can someone provide a reference?

I presume that by "diameter" you mean the length of the longest path.
If each DAG on n nodes (labelled or not) is taken as equally likely,
the length of the longest path is asymptotically normally distributed
with mean An and variance Bn, where A and B are constants.  Approximately
A=0.764334 and B=0.145210.

Reference:  B.D. McKay, On the shape of a random acyclic digraph,
            Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 106 (1989) 459-465.

Another model of a random DAG is as follows:  take a DAG with n(n-1)/2
edges (there is essentially only one) and delete each edge with
probability 1/2.  For this model, the answer to your question is
unknown to my knowledge.

> Christian.Collberg@dna.lu.se

Brendan McKay.  Australian National University.