The Soliton distribution is a discrete probability distribution over a set ${1,dots, N}$ with the probability mass function
$$
p(1)=frac{1}{N},qquad p(k)=frac{1}{k(k-1)}quadtext{for }kin{2,dots, N}
$$
I'd like to use it as part of an implementation of an LT code, ideally in Python where a uniform random number generator is available.
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Best Answer
If we start at $k=2$, the sums telescope, giving $1-1/k$ for the (modified) CDF. Inverting this, and taking care of the special case $k=1$, gives the following algorithm (coded in R, I'm afraid, but you can take it as pseudocode for a Python implementation):
rsoliton <- function(n.values, n=2) { x <- runif(n.values) # Uniform values in [0,1) i <- ceiling(1/x) # Modified soliton distribution i[i > n] <- 1 # Convert extreme values to 1 i } As an example of its use (and a test), let's draw $10^5$ values for $N=10$:
n.trials <- 10^5 i <- rsoliton(n.trials, n=10) freq <- table(i) / n.trials # Tabulate frequencies plot(freq, type="h", lwd=6) 
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