Protection Number in Plane Trees

Abstract

The protection number of a plane tree is the minimal distance of the root to a leaf; this definition carries over to an arbitrary node in a plane tree by considering the maximal subtree having this node as a root. We study the the protection number of a uniformly chosen random tree of size $n$ and also the protection number of a uniformly chosen node in a uniformly chosen random tree of size $n$. The method is to apply singularity analysis to appropriate generating functions. Additional results are provided as well.