On $k$-clusters of high-intensity random geometric graphs

Abstract

Let $k,d $ be positive integers. We determine a sequence of constants that are asymptotic to the probability that the cluster at the origin in a $d$-dimensional Poisson Boolean model with balls of fixed radius is of order $k$, as the intensity becomes large. Using this, we determine the asymptotics of the mean of the number of components of order $k$, denoted $S_{n,k}$ in a random geometric graph on $n$ uniformly distributed vertices in a smoothly bounded compact region of $R^d$, with distance parameter $r(n)$ chosen so that the expected degree grows slowly as $n$ becomes large (the so-called mildly dense limiting regime). We also show that the variance of $S_{n,k}$ is asymptotic to its mean, and prove Poisson and normal approximation results for $S_{n,k}$ in this limiting regime. We provide analogous results for the corresponding Poisson process (i.e. with a Poisson number of points). We also give similar results in the so-called mildly sparse limiting regime where $r(n)$ is chosen so the expected degree decays slowly to zero as $n $ becomes large.