An exact formula for the move-to-front rule for self-organizing lists

A collection of items (e.g., books), each with an associated weight (or popularity), is arranged in a row. At each unit of time an item is removed with probability proportional to its weight and replaced at the left end of the row. Thismove-to-front rule gives a Markov chain on permutations often known as theTsetlin library. We derive an exact and tractable formula for the probability of any permutation after any number of moves. From the formula we read off previously studied quantities of interest associated with the chain, such as the stationary distribution and eigenvalues. Measuring discrepancy from stationarity by separation, we use the formula to find the initial arrangement giving the slowest convergence to stationarity. The time to stationarity in this case is a convolution of geometric random variables which we analyze for three natural choices of weights. We also assess the time required for an important functional, namely, expected search cost, to approach its stationary value.