Shared dynamically small points for polynomials on average

Abstract Given two rational maps $f,g: \mathbb {P}^1 \to \mathbb {P}^1$ of degree d over $\mathbb {C}$ , DeMarco, Krieger, and Ye [Common preperiodic points for quadratic polynomials. J. Mod. Dyn. 18 (2022), 363–413] have conjectured that there should be a uniform bound $B = B(d)> 0$ such that either they have at most B common preperiodic points or they have the same set of preperiodic points. We study their conjecture from a statistical perspective and prove that the average number of shared preperiodic points is zero for monic polynomials of degree $d \geq 6$ with rational coefficients. We also investigate the quantity $\liminf _{x \in \overline {\mathbb {Q}}} (\widehat {h}_f(x) + \widehat {h}_g(x) )$ for a generic pair of polynomials and prove both lower and upper bounds for it.