Discrete Spacings

Abstract

Consider a string of $n$ positions, i.e. a discrete string of length $n$. Units of length $k$ are placed at random on this string in such a way that they do not overlap, and as often as possible, i.e. until all spacings between neighboring units have length less than $k$. When centered and scaled by $n^{-1/2}$ the resulting numbers of spacings of length $1, 2,..., k-1$ have simultaneously a limiting normal distribution as $n\to\infty$. This is proved by the classical method of moments.