Asympotic behavior of the total length of external branches for Beta-coalescents

Jean-Stephane Dhersin, Linglong Yuan

Published 2012-02-27, updated 2013-05-23Version 3

We consider a ${\Lambda}$-coalescent and we study the asymptotic behavior of the total length $L^{(n)}_{ext}$ of the external branches of the associated $n$-coalescent. For Kingman coalescent, i.e. ${\Lambda}={\delta}_0$, the result is well known and is useful, together with the total length $L^{(n)}$, for Fu and Li's test of neutrality of mutations% under the infinite sites model asumption . For a large family of measures ${\Lambda}$, including Beta$(2-{\alpha},{\alpha})$ with $0<\alpha<1$, M{\"o}hle has proved asymptotics of $L^{(n)}_{ext}$. Here we consider the case when the measure ${\Lambda}$ is Beta$(2-{\alpha},{\alpha})$, with $1<\alpha<2$. We prove that $n^{{\alpha}-2}L^{(n)}_{ext}$ converges in $L^2$ to $\alpha(\alpha-1)\Gamma(\alpha)$. As a consequence, we get that $L^{(n)}_{ext}/L^{(n)}$ converges in probability to $2-\alpha$. To prove the asymptotics of $L^{(n)}_{ext}$, we use a recursive construction of the $n$-coalescent by adding individuals one by one. Asymptotics of the distribution of $d$ normalized external branch lengths and a related moment result are also given.