A moment-generating formula for Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi component sizes

Abstract

We derive a simple formula characterizing the distribution of the size of the connected component of a fixed vertex in the Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graph which allows us to give elementary proofs of some results of Federico, van der Hofstad, den Hollander and Hulshof as well as Janson and Luczak about the susceptibility in the subcritical graph and the central limit theorem of Pittel for the size of the giant component in the supercritical graph.