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Sampling method for a specific distribution in high dimensions

We are given a set $X$ of $n$ points $\mathbf{x}_1, \mathbf{x}_2, \ldots, \mathbf{x}_n\in\mathbb{R}^d$, where $d\ll n$. Given any point $\mathbf{p}$ on the unit $(d-1)$-sphere $\mathcal{S}$, we define ...
Penelope Benenati's user avatar
8 votes
4 answers
2k views

How to interpret couplings in optimal transport?

Let $\mu$ and $\nu$ be two measures on some (at least measurable) space $X$. In optimal transport theory, Monge's problem to $$ \text{minimize} \quad \int c(x,T(x))\mu(dx) \quad \text{over measurable ...
vaoy's user avatar
  • 309
2 votes
1 answer
404 views

Euclidean distance bound with geometric constraints

Let $S_n$ be a set of $n$ points belonging to $\mathcal{B}_d:=\{\mathbf{x}\in\mathbb{R}^d:\|\mathbf{x}\|_2\le 1\}$, where $d\ll \log(n)$. Let $s_n$ and $\ell_n$ be respectively defined as follows: $$...
Penelope Benenati's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
257 views

Variations on Gauss' trick

Cross-posted from MSE. This question is inspired by these two: Non-trivial values of error function erf(x)? Where is the mass of a hypercube? Upon reading these two, I realized there might be a ...
Yly's user avatar
  • 956
2 votes
2 answers
379 views

Probabilistic combinatorial optimization problem on the distances between pairs of points in $[0,1]$

Let $S$ be a set of $n \gg 1$ points lying on the interval $[0,1]$. Given a point $p\in[0,1]$, let $S_p\subseteq S\times S$ be the set formed by all pairs of points $(x,y)$ with $x,y\in S$, such that ...
Penelope Benenati's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
218 views

Mass distributions for high dimensional simplex and cross polytope

In this question, it is shown that the radial mass distribution of an $n$-cube (i.e. the probability density for the distance from a point selected uniformly from within an $n$-cube to the cube's ...
Yly's user avatar
  • 956
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Closed-form upper-bounds for Wasserstein distance between finite measures

Let $x_1,\dots,x_n,y_1,\dots,y_n\in \mathbb{R}$ and such that $x_i\neq x_j$ and $y_i\neq y_j$ if $i\neq j$. Let $a,b$ be elements of the probability n-simplex. Define the measures $\mu\triangleq \...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
6 votes
1 answer
424 views

Probability of intersecting a rectangle with random straight lines

We are given a rectangle $R$ with sides lengths $r_1$ and $r_2$, contained in a square $S$, with sides lengths $s_1=s_2\ge r_1$ and $s_2=s_1\ge r_2$. $R$ and $S$ are axis-aligned in a cartesian plane $...
Penelope Benenati's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
290 views

Geometric probabilistic problem on triangles on a plane

We are given a triangle $T$ on a plane $P$, with sidelengths $a$, $b$ and $c$, where $c \ge b \ge a > 0$. A straight line $L$ on $P$ is selected uniformly at random from the set of all the ...
Penelope Benenati's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
313 views

What is the probability that a random chord in a sphere touches opposite hemispheres?

(edited) Consider the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^2\subset \mathbb{R}^3$, and its upper $(z>0)$ and lower $(z<0)$ hemispheres. Draw two independent, uniformly distributed points $X,Y$ on $\mathbb{S}^...
user655870's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
132 views

Probability that a Voronoi cell contains exactly k random points

Consider two independent point processes in the unit square $[0,1]^2$. The two point processes are identically independent and typically binomial/Poisson. One, say $\Phi^*$, is used to generate a ...
maurizio's user avatar
  • 137
8 votes
1 answer
270 views

Sizes of connected components from a random choice in a grid

This is inspired by the illustration in this recently updated question. So we take a (fairly big) $n$ and an $n \times n$ grid where we draw at random one diagonal in each of the $1 \times 1$ squares. ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.4k
1 vote
0 answers
113 views

Metrics on the space of distributions in terms of p.d.fs

If two probability distributions (on the same measure space) are s.t they have p.d.fs and the $L^1$ distance between the p.d.f.s is large, then is there a choice of a ``nice" metric $d_{\rm ...
gradstudent's user avatar
  • 2,246
1 vote
0 answers
184 views

Bounding the total variation metric between Gaussian mixtures

Let $\mathcal{P}(\mathbb{R}^d)$ the space of probability measures on $\mathbb{R}^d$ with total variation metric $\delta$, fix $k \in \mathbb{N}$, and let $\mathcal{P}'\subset \mathcal{P}(\mathbb{R}^d)$...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
5 votes
1 answer
698 views

Lower bound for mutual inner products of N random unit vectors in $\mathbb{R}^n$, N > n

I have $N$ independent random unit vectors $\{v_i\}$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$, where N > n. I need a concentration inequality of the form $$\text{P}(|v_i \cdot v_j| > \epsilon \,\,\,\, \forall i, j = 1, \...
user27182's user avatar
  • 337
6 votes
2 answers
702 views

2D closed convex shape which minimizes average distance between points

For a 2D closed convex shape, with metric $d$ and fixed area $A$, we can calculate the average distance between random (interior) points. For different shapes, we will get different values for this ...
Michael Mc Gettrick's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
159 views

Maximizing $\iiint|(x-z)\times(y-z)|d\mu d\mu d\mu$ over probability measures on the unit sphere

This is a follow-up question to the one asked here (the unit circle case). What probability measure(s) maximize the quantity $\iiint_{\mathbb{S}^2}|(x-z)\times(y-z)|d\mu(x)d\mu(y)d\mu(z)$? The ...
Josiah Park's user avatar
  • 3,209
5 votes
1 answer
389 views

Maximizing $\iiint|(x-z)\times(y-z)|d\mu d\mu d\mu$ over probability measures on the unit circle

What probability measure(s) maximize the quantity $\iiint_{\mathbb{S}^1}|(x-z)\times(y-z)|d\mu(x)d\mu(y)d\mu(z)$? The answer appears to be uniform measure, since informally it appears better to have ...
Josiah Park's user avatar
  • 3,209
3 votes
0 answers
253 views

Metric ($f$-divergence) on space of probability measures that satisfies pythagorean theorem

Let $E$ be a polish space, $\mathcal{P}(E)$ the Borel probability measures on $E$ with the topology of weak convergence and $\mathcal{Q} \subset \mathcal{P}(E)$ a convex and compact set. First, the ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 1,095
11 votes
3 answers
565 views

Is Stoch enriched in Met?

Let $\mathsf{Stoch}$ denote the Kleisli category of the Giry monad. That is, $\mathsf{Stoch}$ is a category whose objects are measurable spaces and for which a morphism $f\in\mathsf{Stoch}(X,Y)$ is a ...
David Spivak's user avatar
  • 8,659
11 votes
0 answers
307 views

Entropy, magnitude, diversity of finite metric spaces in number theory

I was reading the article by Tom Leinster, (Maximizing diversity in biology and beyond, arXiv link), and find it very interesting. Since I was searching for entropies of finite metric spaces I found ...
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
473 views

On 4 random points in a rectangle [closed]

Given a bounded rectangular area, I generate 4 random points. What is the probability that the fourth point lie within a triangle formed the first 3? How would I attack this problem? The goal is to ...
Brad's user avatar
  • 133
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

Talagrand's inequality for the discrete cube

Talagrand showed that if $f$ is a convex $1$-Lipschitz function on $\mathbb{R}^n$, and if $\mu$ is a product of probability measures supported over the interval, then $f$ has Gaussian concentration w....
alesia's user avatar
  • 2,772
9 votes
1 answer
338 views

Visibility in a growing orchard

This is a variant on Polya's orchard problem.1,2 Suppose trees are planted randomly in the plane. The question is: How many trees are visible from the origin as their radii grow? More precisely, ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
242 views

Barycenter Map on Wasserstein Space

Let $(X,d)$ be a complete separable metric space, $P_1(X,d)$ be the set of Radon probability measures on $X$ satisfying $$ P_1(X,d)\triangleq \left\{ \nu:\,(\exists x_0\in X)\, \int_{x\in X} d(x,x_0)d\...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
6 votes
1 answer
261 views

Area of $n$-sphere contained outside $\ell_1$ ball

For a given $r>1$, what is the surface area of $\mathbb S^{n-1}$ (the sphere of radius 1 in $\mathbb R^n$) which is contained outside of the $\ell_1$ ball of radius $r$? Or equivalently, if $X\sim ...
Shant Boodaghians's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
122 views

Discrepancy of the finite approximation of the Lebesgue measure

Let $\mu$ be a probabilistic measure on the unit square $Q$ which is the average of $N$ delta-measures in some points in this square; let $\lambda$ denote the Lebesgue measure on $Q$. What is the rate ...
Fedor Petrov's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
393 views

Growing a chain of unit-area triangles: Fills the plane?

Define a process to start with a unit-area equilateral triangle, and at each step glue on another unit-area triangle.                     $50$ ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
484 views

What does convergence in distribution "in the Gromov–Hausdorff" sense mean?

I am trying to understand this survey article by Le Gall on Brownian geometry, especially the statement of Theorem 1. The basic statement of the theorem is $$(m_n,d_n) \to (m_{\infty}, d_{\infty})$$ "...
Matthew Kahle's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
110 views

A questions concerning Laguerre/Voronoi tessellations

Fix $n>1$ distinguished points $x_1,\ldots, x_n\in \mathbb R^d$, the Voronoi tessellations are the subsets $V_1,\ldots V_n\subset\mathbb R^d$ defined by $$V_k~~ := ~~ \big\{x\in\mathbb R^d:\quad |...
user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
239 views

Probability of two Points being divided by an high-Dimensional Hyperplane

I have two points $x_1,x_2 \in \mathbb S^n $ which are distant $d$ from each other, where $d<<1$. I also have a vector $v$ sampled uniformly at random from $\mathbb S^n$. What is the ...
Alfred's user avatar
  • 899
10 votes
3 answers
2k views

Mean maximum distance for N random points on a unit square

Following up on Mean minimum distance for N random points on a one-dimensional line and Mean minimum distance for N random points on a unit square (plane), I have the following questions. Given N ...
Silvia's user avatar
  • 193
5 votes
1 answer
928 views

Hausdorff distance is a lower (or upper bound) for what probability metric?

In a metric space $X=(X, d)$, given a probability measure $\mu$ and two subsets $A$ and $B$ of positive measure, it's not hard to prove that $$ d(A, B) \le W(\mu|_A, \mu|_B), $$ where $d(A, B):= \...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,853
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Sampling a uniformly distributed point INSIDE a hypersphere?

There is a simple algorithm to pick a random point ON an $n$-dimensional hypersphere. Is there one to sample a point from inside it? (Sampling points from a hypercube and rejecting them if they are ...
MWB's user avatar
  • 1,667
4 votes
0 answers
156 views

Geometric meaning of the chi-square "measure of association"

In Statistics, there's a standard test of independence of two random variables taking values in finite sets $I,J$. It relies on the computation of $\chi$-square statistics, $$ \chi^2:=\sum_{(i,j)\in ...
Kostya_I's user avatar
  • 8,992
13 votes
1 answer
10k views

KL divergence and mixture of Gaussians

Do we have an exact formula to compute the KL divergence between 2 mixtures of Gaussians (i.e convex combinations of a finite number of Gaussian distributions)? If not exactly known, are there good ...
gradstudent's user avatar
  • 2,246
2 votes
0 answers
83 views

Wasserstein distance to the set of Gaussians, relation to Boltzman dissipation rate

$\newcommand{\RR}{\mathbb{R}}$ I am interested in the 2-Wasserstein distance for probabilities over $\RR^n$, $W_2(μ,ν)=\left(\inf\int_{\RR^n×\RR^n}|w−v|^2dπ(v,w)\right)^1/2$ where the infimum is taken ...
Nicholas Zubrick's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
756 views

Tangent space and gradient on subspace of Wasserstein space given by finitely supported measures

Let $\mathcal{P}_2(M)$ be the 2-Wasserstein space over some Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ (connected, complete, and without boundary). Let $\mathcal{FP}_2(M,n)$ be the subspace of probability measures ...
S.Surace's user avatar
  • 1,675
10 votes
2 answers
388 views

Tangled random triangles: One giant component?

Suppose you have $n$ triangles whose corners are random points on a sphere $S$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$. Viewing the triangles as built from rigid bars as edges, two triangles are linked if they cannot be ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
474 views

Wasserstein distance to the set of Gaussians ; Boltzman dissipation rate

I am interested in the $2$-Wasserstein distance for probabilities over ${\mathbb R}^n$, $$W_2(\mu,\nu)=\left(\inf\int_{{\mathbb R}^n\times{\mathbb R}^n}|w-v|^2\pi(v,w)\right)^{1/2}$$ where the infimum ...
Denis Serre's user avatar
  • 52.3k
4 votes
0 answers
93 views

On symmetry and measure concentration rate for convex bodies

The concentration of measure on the cube $ [0, 1]^n $ equipped with uniform probability measure $\mu_{\infty}$, states that for any $A \subset [0, 1]^n $ with $ \mu_{\infty}(A) \geq \frac{1}{2} $, we ...
random_shape's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
100 views

Asymptotics of the joint pdf of two sums of powers of independent $\mathcal U(0,1)$ random variables

As a warm-up in words: The sum of twelve uniform random variables is a classic approximation to a normal distribution. What is the joint pdf for the sum of their cubes and the sum of their fourth ...
Iosif Pinelis's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
234 views

Are random convex polygons on a sphere themselves sphere-like?

Say $\mathbb{R}^n$ is divided by $k>n$ randomly chosen hyperplanes. Each connected region away from the hyperplanes is the intersection of $k$ half-spaces, so it is a convex cone. It is known that ...
Christian Chapman's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
290 views

On the 1/2 assumption on concentration of measure for continuous cube

The concentration of measure on $ [0, 1]^n $ equipped with uniform probability measure $\mu_{\infty}$, states that for any $A \subset [0, 1]^n $ with $ \mu_{\infty}(A) \geq \frac{1}{2} $, we have: $$...
random_shape's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
193 views

A bound on the square distance of a random walk on undirected graph

Fact: Let $G$ be an $n$-vertex undirected graph and $(X_s)_{s\in \mathbb N}$ a stationary random walk on $G$. Then for every $s\in \mathbb{N}$, $ \mathbb{E}[d_G(X_s,X_0)^2] \le C s \log n $, for some ...
Manor Mendel's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
209 views

Stabbing disks in space, or: Galactic alignment

I have a collection of $n$ unit-radius disks in $\mathbb{R}^3$, whose centers are random within a sphere of radius $R>1$, and which are each oriented randomly. I'd like to find a line $L$ that ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
144 views

What is the probability that these four random areas can yield a tetrahedron?

This is inspired by this problem about randomly broken sticks that can form a triangle. It goes in a different direction than this generalization about randomly broken sticks that can form a ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.4k
8 votes
3 answers
660 views

The minimum-perimeter triangle of three sets of points

If $X$ and $Y$ are two sets of $n$ independent, uniformly sampled points in the unit square, then standard methods can show that the expected minimum distance between points in $X$ and $Y$ is ...
Tom Solberg's user avatar
  • 4,049
8 votes
2 answers
256 views

What is the probability that these sets intersect?

Let $A$ be the subset of $\mathbb{R}^n$ defined by $A=\{x\in\mathbb{R}^{n}:|x_{1}-x_{n}|+\sum_{i=1}^{n-1}|x_{i+1}-x_{i}|\leq d\}$ for a given $d$. Next, sample a point $p$ uniformly in the unit cube, ...
Tom Solberg's user avatar
  • 4,049
2 votes
0 answers
60 views

Mean width of intersection of two elipsoid

My question is regarding mean widths. For a set $\mathcal{T}$ define the mean width \begin{align*} \omega(T)=\mathbb{E}_{\mathbf{g}\sim\mathcal{N}(0,\mathbf{I})}\bigg[\underset{\mathbf{u}\in\mathcal{...
Anahita's user avatar
  • 363