Tree-child networks are an important class of phylogenetic network used to model reticulate evolutionary processes. These networks have attracted increasing attention from researchers with interests in both combinatorics and algorithms. A fundamental open problem posed by Pons and Batle asks whether the number TC_{n,k} of bicombining tree-child networks with n leaves and k reticulation nodes equals the number of certain constrained words, now called Pons-Batle words. In this paper, we confirm the conjecture for tree-child networks with a bounded number of reticulation nodes. Our approach is combinatorial and analytic. We introduce families of Young tableaux with walls and holes and construct explicit bijections with Pons-Batle words, yielding a direct combinatorial explanation of the identities. These tableaux encode structural features of the underlying networks, including the placement of reticulation nodes. By projecting them to decorated Dyck paths, we obtain algebraic generating functions with differential operators encoding step weights, leading to explicit recurrence relations and closed-form formulas for TC_{n,k}. Beyond finite verification for moderate k, the framework reveals an underlying probabilistic structure. For k = 1, natural structural parameters, such as the position and value of distinguished cells, converge, after rescaling, to Beta(2,1), Beta(1,2), and Uniform (i.e., Beta(1,1)) distributions. These limit laws arise from a coalescence of singularities at the dominant square-root singularity, producing a non-analytic transition in the local expansion. Overall, our results provide both combinatorial insight and a unified analytic perspective on the asymptotic behavior of tree-child networks, showing how algebraic generating functions with interacting singularities systematically produce Beta limit laws.

Composition schemes are ubiquitous in combinatorics, statistical mechanics and probability theory. We give a unifying explanation to various phenomena observed in the combinatorial and statistical physics literature in the context of~$q$-enumeration (this is a model where objects with a parameter of value $k$ have a Gibbs measure/Boltzmann weight $q^k$). For structures enumerated by a composition scheme, we prove a phase transition for any parameter having such a Gibbs measure: for a critical value $q=q_c$, the limit law of the parameter is a two-parameter Mittag-Leffler distribution, while it is Gaussian in the supercritical regime ($q>q_c$), and it is a Boltzmann distribution in the subcritical regime ($0

Tree-child networks are one of the most prominent network classes for modeling evolutionary processes which contain reticulation events. Several recent studies have addressed counting questions for bicombining tree-child networks which are tree-child networks with every reticulation node having exactly two parents. In this paper, we extend these studies to d-combining tree-child networks where every reticulation node has now d ≥ 2 parents. Moreover, we also give results and conjectures on the distributional behavior of the number of reticulation nodes of a network which is drawn uniformly at random from the set of all tree-child networks with the same number of leaves.

In this article, we revisit and extend a list of formulas based on lattice path surgery: cut-and-paste methods, factorizations, the kernel method, etc. For this purpose, we focus on the natural model of directed lattice paths (also called generalized Dyck paths). We introduce the notion of prime walks, which appear to be the key structure to get natural decompositions of excursions, meanders, bridges, directly leading to the associated context-free grammars. This allows us to give bijective proofs of bivariate versions of Spitzer/Sparre Andersen/Wiener - Hopf formulas, thus capturing joint distributions. We also show that each of the fundamental families of symmetric polynomials corresponds to a lattice path generating function, and that these symmetric polynomials are accordingly needed to express the asymptotic enumeration of these paths and some parameters of limit laws. En passant, we give two other small results which have their own interest for folklore conjectures of lattice paths (non-analyticity of the small roots in the kernel method, and universal positivity of the variability condition occurring in many Gaussian limit law schemes).

We continue the enumeration of plane lattice paths avoiding the negative quadrant initiated by the first author in [Bousquet-Mélou, 2016]. We solve in detail a new case, the king walks, where all 8 nearest neighbour steps are allowed. As in the two cases solved in [Bousquet-Mélou, 2016], the associated generating function is proved to differ from a simple, explicit D-finite series (related to the enumeration of walks confined to the first quadrant) by an algebraic one. The principle of the approach is the same as in [Bousquet-Mélou, 2016], but challenging theoretical and computational difficulties arise as we now handle algebraic series of larger degree. We also explain why we expect the observed algebraicity phenomenon to persist for 4 more models, for which the quadrant problem is solvable using the reflection principle.

We show that the number of minimal deterministic finite automata with n+1 states recognizing a finite binary language grows asymptotically for n → ∞ like Θ(n! 8ⁿ e^{3 a₁ n^{1/3}} n^{7/8}), where a₁ ≈ -2.338 is the largest root of the Airy function. For this purpose, we use a new asymptotic enumeration method proposed by the same authors in a recent preprint (2019). We first derive a new two-parameter recurrence relation for the number of such automata up to a given size. Using this result, we prove by induction tight bounds that are sufficiently accurate for large n to determine the asymptotic form using adapted Netwon polygons.

Pólya urns are urns where at each unit of time a ball is drawn and is replaced with some other balls according to its colour. We introduce a more general model: The replacement rule depends on the colour of the drawn ball and the value of the time (mod p). We discuss some intriguing properties of the differential operators associated to the generating functions encoding the evolution of these urns. The initial non-linear partial differential equation indeed leads to linear differential equations and we prove that the moment generating functions are D-finite. For a subclass, we exhibit a closed form for the corresponding generating functions (giving the exact state of the urns at time n). When the time goes to infinity, we show that these periodic Pólya urns follow a rich variety of behaviours: their asymptotic fluctuations are described by a family of distributions, the generalized Gamma distributions, which can also be seen as powers of Gamma distributions. En passant, we establish some enumerative links with other combinatorial objects, and we give an application for a new result on the asymptotics of Young tableaux: This approach allows us to prove that the law of the lower right corner in a triangular Young tableau follows asymptotically a product of generalized Gamma distributions.