Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2018
In this article we show the asymptotics of distribution and moments of the size Xn of the minimal clade of a randomly chosen individual in a Bolthausen-Sznitman n-coalescent for n → ∞. The Bolthausen-Sznitman n-coalescent is a Markov process taking states in the set of partitions of {1, …, n}, where 1, …, n are referred to as individuals. The minimal clade of an individual is the equivalence class the individual is in at the time of the first coalescence event this individual participates in. We also provide exact formulae for the distribution of Xn. The main tool used is the connection of the Bolthausen-Sznitman n-coalescent with random recursive trees introduced by Goldschmidt and Martin (2005). With it, we show that Xn - 1 is distributed as the size of a uniformly chosen table in a standard Chinese restaurant process with n - 1 customers.