Self-intersections in combinatorial topology: statistical structure

Oriented closed curves on an orientable surface with boundary are described up to continuous deformation by reduced cyclic words in the generators of the fundamental group and their inverses. By self-intersection number one means the minimum number of transversal self-intersection points of representatives of the class. We prove that if a class is chosen at random from among all classes of m letters, then for large m the distribution of the self-intersection number approaches the Gaussian distribution. The theorem was strongly suggested by a computer experiment with four million curves producing a very nearly Gaussian distribution.