MathDB
An estimate on probability of picking the same subset

Source: 2021 Miklos Schweitzer, P9

November 2, 2021
probability

Problem Statement

For a given natural number nn, two players randomly (uniformly distributed) select a common number 0jn0 \le j \le n, and then each of them independently randomly selects a subset of {1,2,,n}\{1,2, \cdots, n \} with jj elements. Let pnp_n be the probability that the same set was chosen. Prove that \sum_{k=1}^{n} p_k = 2 \log{n} + 2 \gamma - 1 + o(1),   (n \to \infty), where γ\gamma is the Euler constant.