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1 vote
1 answer
241 views

Expectation of top-K selection of squared Gaussian random variables

Let us have $$ Z = [z_1, z_2, \dots, z_n], $$ where $z_i \sim N(0, \sigma^2)$ and are iid. Additionally, consider $$ X_k := \{ x \in \{0, 1\}^n : e^T x = k \} $$ If $Y = \max_{X \in X_k} |Z^T X|^2,$ ...
0 votes
1 answer
100 views

Expressing a multivariate normal distribution as a mixture of uniform distributions?

Context: Given a scalar normal distribution $X\sim \mathrm{N}(\mu, \sigma^2)$, it is possible to express $X$ as a mixture of uniform distributions over intervals (compound probability distributions), ...
2 votes
0 answers
56 views

Sum of independent Wisharts

Suppose random vectors $y_1,y_2,\ldots,y_m$ are independent and the distribution of each $y_i$ is a $d$-dimensional complex Gaussian with mean $0$ and covariance $\Gamma_i$, that is $y_i \sim \mathcal{...
3 votes
0 answers
353 views

Moments of normalized multivariate Gaussians (and Wick's/Isserlis theorems)

Suppose $x = \begin{bmatrix}x_1 \\ x_2\end{bmatrix}$ is distributed according to the real two-dimensional Gaussian with mean-$0$ and covariance matrix $\Sigma$. I am interested in a closed form for ...
3 votes
0 answers
131 views

Matrix-Gaussian distributions

The point of this question is to ask for references on matrix-variate Gaussian distributions. But I will explain what I mean by a matrix-variate Gaussian with an example (the notion I have in mind is ...
5 votes
1 answer
392 views

comparing Gaussian to order statistic of Gaussian

I would like to compute the probability of $$\mathbb{P}[Y > \max(X_i)], Y\sim N(0, 1), X_i \sim N(0, \sigma_i)$$ All the random variables have zero mean, but the variances are different. My ...
0 votes
1 answer
110 views

Positivity of linear combination of gaussian variables

Consider a collection of independent standard Gaussian variables $w_i$ for $i = 1, 2, \ldots, N$. Define its linear combination $f:=\sum_{i=1}^Na_iw_i+b_i$, where $a_i=pb_i$ ($p$ is a fixed parameter),...
1 vote
2 answers
331 views

Anti-concentration of gaussian variable

Let $X$ be $\mathcal{N}(\mu,\sigma^2)$ gaussian. Its expectation $\mu$ is positive. Can we derive a lower bound on $$\mathbb{P}(X\geq\epsilon)\geq g(\epsilon,\mu,\sigma) \text{ where } \epsilon\leq\mu$...
0 votes
1 answer
61 views

What can we say about the order of convergence of a critical point of Gaussian mixture density to its limit when the parameter $h$ goes to $0?$

Density of Gaussian mixture with $n$ components is given by: $$f(x):=C \sum_{i=1}^{n}e^{-\frac{1}{2}||\frac{x-x_i}{h}||^2}, x_i \in \mathbb{R}^d, h > 0$$ where $C$ is a normalization constant ...
0 votes
0 answers
29 views

k-means errors for a block Gaussian vector

Consider a standard centered Gaussian vector $(X_1,...,X_n)$ with an approximate block structure, i.e. there is $q$ and a partition of $\{1,...,n\}$ in $q$ classes such that if $i,j$ are in the same ...
2 votes
0 answers
61 views

Approximate logarithmic bound on expected maximum via central limit theorem

If $Z_i$ are standard normal, possibly dependent, one can show that $$E\left[\max_{i=1,...,M} Z_i^2\right]\leq 3\ln M + 1.$$ I'm looking for a similar (asymptotic) bound for asymptotically normal ...
2 votes
0 answers
386 views

What is the concentration of measure for Gaussian random variables which are independent, but are transformed?

This might be a too easy question for Mathoverflow, but Googling led to similar questions and answers here (though not the one I was looking for). The question is split into two: I have a matrix $X \...
1 vote
1 answer
613 views

Integral of the product of a gaussian pdf and cdf

I am trying to solve the integral of a gaussian cumulative distribution function and a gaussian probability function. On this site I have seen solutions of similar, less general integrals (e.g. ...
2 votes
1 answer
256 views

About a mixture

Consider the following mixture model for a univariate density function $$ (1) \quad f(x)=\int_{(m, \sigma^2)\in D} g(x; m, \sigma^2) \mu(d(m, \sigma^2)) $$ where $D$ is a compact subset of $\mathbb{R}\...
23 votes
7 answers
5k views

What makes Gaussian distributions special?

I'm looking for as many different arguments or derivations as possible that support the informal claim that Gaussian/Normal distributions are "the most fundamental" among all distributions. ...
2 votes
2 answers
690 views

Concentration and anti-concentration of gap between largest and second largest value in Gaussian iid sample

Let $n \ge 3$ be an integer and let $X=(X_1,\ldots,X_n)$ be random vector with iid coordinates from $N(0,1)$. For $1 \le k \le n$, let $X_{(k)}$ be the value of the $k$th largest coordinate of $X$. ...
-2 votes
1 answer
92 views

Existence or impossibility of Gaussian factory

Gaussian factory problem: given an iid sequence $x_i \sim \mathcal{N}(\mu,\sigma^2)$, $i=1,2,\dots$, with $\mu$ and $\sigma^2$ both unknown, construct a realization $y \sim \mathcal{N}(0,1)$.
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 ...
3 votes
1 answer
157 views

Bound for expectation of function of 3 normal distributions

Let $X,Y,Z$ be three standard normal distribution. Let $\rho_{XY},\rho_{YZ},\rho_{XZ}$ be the correlation between those random variables. Let $f()$ be a monotone, odd, bounded, and differentiable ...
1 vote
1 answer
140 views

Reference request: Cover times, Mixing Times and DGFF applied in statistics?

I am trying to find if in active research in statistics, there is interest in mixing times, cover times of graphs, and/or the discrete Gaussian free field? I haven't found anything so far for the ...
4 votes
1 answer
347 views

Concentration of functional of Gaussian random variable

Suppose I have two Gaussian distributions $p(x) = \frac{1}{(2\pi)^{d/2}|\Sigma_p|^{1/2}}\exp(-\frac{1}{2}x^\top \Sigma_p^{-1} x)$ and $q(x) = \frac{1}{(2\pi)^{d/2}|\Sigma_q|^{1/2}}\exp(-\frac{1}{2}x^\...
3 votes
0 answers
75 views

Covariance of censored/clipped Gaussians

I am interested in the covariance of two clipped (or censored) Gaussian variables. More precisely, let $g_1 \sim N(0,\sigma_1^2)$ and $g_2 \sim N(0,\sigma_2^2)$ be two (dependent) Gaussians with $\...
4 votes
0 answers
76 views

How well does an estimator perform on another dataset?

Suppose $X \sim N(0, \Sigma)$ is a $d$-dimensional Gaussian random vector. And we have $2n$ $i.i.d$ sample $X_1, \ldots, X_{n}, \ldots, X_{2n}$. Let $\hat{\Sigma}_1 = \frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^nX_i X_i^\...
1 vote
1 answer
115 views

Supremum of centered jointly generalized chi-square random variables

Let $\zeta_n$ be a sequence of centered jointly generalized chi-square random variables, i.e. $\zeta_n = \sum_{k=1}^{m_n} a_{k,n}(\xi_{k,n}^2 - E[\xi_{k,n}^2])$, and $\xi_{k,n}$ are centered jointly ...
1 vote
2 answers
388 views

Average Multivariate Gaussian

Suppose we have a (possibly infinite) collection k-variate gaussian distributions $\{(\mathcal{N}(\mu_{\lambda}, \Sigma_{\lambda}))\}$ ($\lambda$ is just a label), and for each distribution $\mu \in [-...
1 vote
1 answer
207 views

Computing probability that $Ax\geq0$ where $x$ is a vector of iid gaussians and $A$ is matrix of $1$s and $0$s

This question came up in my research: What is the probability that $Ax\geq0$ where $x$ is a vector of iid gaussians and $A$ is matrix of $1$s and $0$s? So far I only figured out that I can do Monte ...
1 vote
0 answers
104 views

Efficient evaluation of multidimensional kernel density estimate

Edit I have copied this discussion to the stats community site here, since I feel it is more relevant. Please feel free to close this in due course. I've seen a reasonable amount of literature about ...
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Are Gaussian Processes more important than other stochastic processes?

I am doing a course at university and it deals with Gaussian Processes mainly. We use them for fitting data and prediction, machine learning, regression, classification. Is there any particular reason ...
1 vote
1 answer
281 views

A uniqueness proposition involving Erf, the error function

This is a generalization of a previous MO question, "Reducing system of equations involving Erf, Error Function". Consider the system of equations: $$1/2 + {\rm Erf}(x) - \alpha {\rm Erf}(\frac{x+y}{...
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

Reducing system of equations involving Erf, Error Function

I have a system of equations: $$1/2 + {\rm Erf}(x) - {\rm Erf}(\frac{x+y}{2})=0$$ $$-1/2 + {\rm Erf}(y) - {\rm Erf}(\frac{x+y}{2})=0,$$ Where $x \le y$ and ${\rm Erf}$ is the Error Function. By ...