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6 votes
1 answer
237 views

Ordering preference for two zero mean Gaussian outcomes

Let $X\sim \mathcal{N}(0,1)$ be a standard Gaussian random variable. If we let $f_a(x)\triangleq\mathbb{E}[\max\{aX,x\}]$ for $a,x >0$, how to prove that $$f_a(f_b(1))<f_b(f_a(1))~~\text{for }0&...
Pierre's user avatar
  • 171
0 votes
0 answers
86 views

A non trivial example of a Gaussian semi-Markov process?

Let $(\Omega, \mathcal A, \mathbb P)$ be a probability space and $X=(X_t)$ a real Gaussian stochastic process. Let $\mathcal F=(\mathcal F_t)$ be the filtration generated by $(X_t)$. $X$ is Markov ...
W. Volante's user avatar
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. ...
3 votes
1 answer
139 views

Design a random variable which has the maximal correlation with another random variable

$Y$ is a Gaussian distributed random variable with zero mean and known variance: $Y\sim N(0,\sigma_y)$. We measure $Y$ with a sensor, which is corrupted by white Gaussian noise: $Z=Y+V$; $V\sim N(0,\...
Jing Zhou's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
190 views

Pedestrian proof of Gaussian chaos for order-two polynomial?

Let $\ell \geqslant 1$. Let us consider $(g_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ identically distributed independent real gaussian variables and real number $(a_{n_1,\dots n_{\ell}})_{(n_1, \dots, n_{\ell}s)\in\...
combNightmare's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
512 views

Conditions for Gaussianity of SDE

Fix $T>0$, $x \in \mathbb{R}^n$, and let $\mu$ and $\sigma_1,\dots,\sigma_m$ be (globally) Lipschitz-continuous functions from $[0,T]\times \mathbb{R}^n$ to $\mathbb{R}^n$. Thus, for every $0\leq ...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
0 votes
2 answers
874 views

Bounds for the sum of dependent gaussian random variables

Let $X_1,...,X_n$ be $n$ gaussian random variables $N(0,1)$ not necessarily independent or jointly correlated, $S=\sum_{i=1}^n w_i X_i$ be the weighted sum of these gaussian variables (because $(X_i)_{...
NN2's user avatar
  • 250
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 $X$. ...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,853
1 vote
1 answer
666 views

Definite integral of 2d Gaussian

Is there some analytic expression or even an approximation of the definite 2D Gaussian integral of the form: $$E=\int_a^b Dg \int_{cg+d}^\infty Dh$$ where $Dg=\frac{dg}{\sqrt{2 \pi}} e^{-g^2/2}$ and a,...
Uri Cohen's user avatar
  • 373
0 votes
0 answers
64 views

How to compute the following probability involving two normal random variables?

$\alpha$ and $\alpha'$ are two independent standard normal random variables. What's the conditional probability $$\mathbb{P}[\alpha >0, \alpha' >0|c_1<|\alpha - \alpha'|<c_2],$$ where $c_1$...
luw's user avatar
  • 327
2 votes
3 answers
166 views

On the probability of the multivariate normal with fixed pairwise correlations being coordinate-wise non-negative

This problem itself, admittedly, is not a research problem; but rather an intermediate step I've encountered in my research. Let $(X_i:1\le i\le N)$ be a multivariate normal random vector where i) ...
hookah's user avatar
  • 1,096
5 votes
2 answers
174 views

Integrability of Gaussian sums

Let $(X_1, \ldots, X_n)$ be a Gaussian vector, and $Z = \sum_{i=1}^n |X_i|$. Since the map $x \mapsto e^{x^2}$, is convex, for any $t>0$ $$ e^{tZ^2} \, = \, e^{t \big(\sum_{i=1}^n |X_i| \big)^2}...
Paul's user avatar
  • 51
0 votes
1 answer
73 views

Algorithm for economically sampling method for Gaussian matrix product

Let $A$ be an $n\times n$ random matrix with i.i.d. $N(0,\sigma)$ entries, for some $\sigma>0$ and let $x\in \mathbb{R}^n$. A direct computation shows that $Ax \sim N(0,\sigma x^{\top}x)$. I would ...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
0 votes
0 answers
320 views

Does additive Gaussian noise preserves the Shannon entropy ordering?

Suppose that $Z$ is a Gaussian random variable independent of $X$ and $Y$. Moreover suppose that $h(X) \geq h(Y)$, where $h(\cdot)$ is the differential Shannon entropy. Does relation $h(X+Z) \geq h(Y+...
Mini's user avatar
  • 85
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

Convolution of two Gaussian mixture model

Suppose I have two independent random variables $X$, $Y$, each modeled by the Gaussian mixture model (GMM). That is, $$ f(x)=\sum _{k=1}^K \pi _k \mathcal{N}\left(x|\mu _k,\sigma _k\right) $$ $$ g(y)=\...
wuhanichina's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
116 views

How to compute the following probability involving 4 normal random variables?

$\alpha, \alpha', \beta$ and $\beta'$ are four independent standard normal random variables, I am wondering how to compute the probability of the following two events: $\alpha>\alpha'>0, \ \ \...
luw's user avatar
  • 327
0 votes
1 answer
806 views

Concentration of $\ell_2$ norm of a vector sampled from a distribution

Let $X=(X_1,\ldots,X_n)$, where $X_i \sim P_{p_i}(0,\frac{1}{\lambda})$ are iid, $P_{p_i}$ is sub gaussian distribution for $i^\text{th}$ element, and 0 and $1/\lambda$ are mean and variance. I'm ...
newbie's user avatar
  • 61
0 votes
0 answers
321 views

Projecting a vector onto a random subspace

Let $A\in\mathbb{R}^{k\times d}$ be matrix with i.i.d. $\mathcal{N}(0,1/k)$ entries with $k<d$, and let $B=A^{\top}A$. I would like to compute the distribution of $Bx$ where $x\in\mathbb{R}^{d}$ is ...
nemo's user avatar
  • 129
1 vote
1 answer
169 views

Probability involving dependent random variables constructed from i.i.d. Gaussians

This is a problem I need to address for a certain computation in my research. Let $Y_1,\dots,Y_n$ be a sequence of i.i.d. standard normal variables; and let $I\subset[0,+\infty)$ be an interval. In my ...
hookah's user avatar
  • 1,096
5 votes
1 answer
224 views

Hermite polynomial after rotation

When we consider the $n$-dimensional standard normal distribution, the orthogonal basis is $\{H_S(x)\}_{S}$ where $H_S(x) = \prod_{k=1}^n H_{s_k}(x_k)$. Here $H_*(x)$ is the normalized probabilist's ...
Pascalprimer's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
194 views

Gaussian integral $\int_X \|x\|_X^2 \mu(dx)$ in Banach space

For a centered Gaussian measure $\mu$ on a Hilbert space $X$, it is known that $$\int_X \|x\|^2 \mu(dx) = tr(Q)$$ where $Q$ is the covariance operator. Is there a similar version for Gaussian measures ...
Philipp Wacker's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
501 views

Identity on convolution with Gaussian measure

I've came across an identity once (I don't remember where) concerning convolutions of Gaussian measures. If I'm not mistaken, this identity was \begin{eqnarray} (\mu_{C}*f)(y) = \exp\bigg{[}\frac{1}{...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
209 views

Distribution of the direction of Gaussian random variable

Let $X$ be a complex normal random variable. (Or, equivalently, a 2D real normal.) Is it possible to say anything useful about the distribution of the phase of $X$? Is it possible to do estimation on ...
Elena Yudovina's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
1k views

Explicit constant for Carbery–Wright inequality

The Carbery–Wright inequality is a seminal result about the anti-concentration of polynomials of Gaussian random variables. See e.g. Meka, Nguyen, and Vu - Anti-concentration for polynomials of ...
user134977's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
264 views

Which orthant probabilities are the largest? (For a multivariate normal distribution)

I have a $k$-dimensional multivariate normal distribution $X∼N(0,\Sigma)$ with covariance matrix $\Sigma$. $\Sigma$ has two distinct eigenvalues, say $\lambda_1 > \lambda_2$, with orthogonal ...
Matthew Harrison-Trainor's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
1k views

A general formula for Gaussian integrals over matrix elements

The question I have is quite specific. So in the hope that this post might help others in the future, my problem boils down to solving the following integral: $$I_\tau=\int \prod_{i, j=1}^{N} d J_{i ...
Matt's user avatar
  • 117
4 votes
2 answers
512 views

Bounding an expectation involving i.i.d. standard Gaussians and Rademacher

I have tried to bound the following quantity, but cannot get the "right" (conjectured) bound: $$ \phi(\gamma,d,n) = -1+e^{\frac{1}{2}n\gamma^2 d} \mathbb{E}_{X}\left[\frac{\mathbb{E}_Z[\prod_{j=1}^n(...
Clement C.'s user avatar
  • 1,372
6 votes
2 answers
904 views

Gaussian measure on function spaces

I'm reading this classic work and I'd like to get deeper inside some of its techniques. In particular, the authors state: "We construct a Gaussian measure $d\mu_{0}(\phi)$ on a measure space of ...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Gaussian concentration inequality

Recently I found a concentration inequality for infinite dimensional Gaussian r.v.s in this paper. Specifically, Lemma 4 on page 307 states (without a proof) that There exists a universal constant $...
d.k.o.'s user avatar
  • 185
0 votes
1 answer
102 views

Sign of expectation value

Consider a multivariate Gaussian-type measure $$d\lambda(x):=\nu_{\mu,\Sigma} e^{-\langle (x-\mu), \Sigma^{-1}(x-\mu) \rangle - \vert x \vert^2} $$ with vector $\mu \in \mathbb R^n$ and $\Sigma$ ...
Sascha's user avatar
  • 536
2 votes
1 answer
759 views

History of the name "subexponential distribution" in probability

In probability theory, the term subexponential distribution has historically been used for a distribution whose CDF $F(x)$ satisfies the relation $$ n(1-F(x)) \sim 1 - F^{*n}(x) $$ for any $n \ge 1$ ...
Greg Zitelli's user avatar
  • 1,114
2 votes
2 answers
468 views

Concentration bound on maximum subset sum of standard Gaussians

Let $X_1, \dots, X_n$ be standard Gaussians. Let $\mathcal{S} \subseteq \{A \in 2^{\{1, \dots, n\}} : |A| = k\} $ be a family of subsets of $\{1,\dots, n\}$ with fixed size $k$. [Note that $\mathcal{S}...
Uthsav Chitra's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
797 views

Which distributions of $X$ and $Y$ yield a Gaussian $Z=XY$?

Let $Z=XY$ where $X$, $Y$ are random variables with support of non-trivial measure. For what distributions of $X$ and $Y$ can $Z$ be guaranteed to be Gaussian?
rodms's user avatar
  • 409
4 votes
3 answers
428 views

Maximum of independent, unit-variance Gaussians with non-zero means

Suppose $X_1,\dots,X_n$ are independent Gaussians, where $X_k \sim N(\mu_k,1)$. I am interested in $$ Z \stackrel{\rm def}{=} \max_{1\leq k\leq n} X_k $$ and specifically on the asymptotics of $\...
Clement C.'s user avatar
  • 1,372
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 ...
lhk's user avatar
  • 151
1 vote
1 answer
82 views

Expectation value of multilinear forms over independent Gaussian vectors

Let $A$ be a symmetric multilinear form on $\left(\mathbb{R}^d\right)^{\otimes n}\times \left(\mathbb{R}^d\right)^{\otimes n}$ and consider the random variable: \begin{align*} X=A(g_1,\ldots,g_n,g_1,\...
user134977's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
174 views

Slepian's Lemma for Range?

Let $\vec{x}$ and $\vec{y}$ be zero mean $n$-variate Gaussian variables with covariances $\Sigma^x, \Sigma^y$. Suppose they have identical marginals ($\sigma_{i,i}^x = \sigma_{i,i}^y$ for all $i$), ...
Steven Pav's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
431 views

Central limit theorem for resampling

This is a cross-post from stats.stackexchange.com. No answer has appeared there. Since this is a theoretical question, mathoverflow.net seems to be a more appropriate venue for it. What is the analog ...
Hans's user avatar
  • 2,239
1 vote
1 answer
66 views

Comparing noisy truncated RV with noisy regular RV

For some reason, I'm having difficulties proving something that is intuitively simple. Assuming I have two a random variable, $x$ and $x^{truncated}$, where $x^{truncated}$ is the truncated version of ...
MRm's user avatar
  • 183
2 votes
1 answer
244 views

Reference: hitting time of Gaussian process

Let $X_t$ be an OU process and $Y_t$ be the Gaussian process defined by $$ Y_t = y+\int_0^t X_s ds + W_t, $$ for some Brownian motion independent of $X_t$. Let $y,a>0$; is there a large deviation ...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
1 vote
0 answers
62 views

Distances between up and down crosses in Gaussian Processes

Given a gaussian process $g := \mathcal{GP}\left(\mu, \Sigma \right)$, where $\mu$ is the mean and $\Sigma$ is the covariance function, I am interested in estimating the mean value $L_m$ of the ...
Kikolo's user avatar
  • 91
2 votes
3 answers
999 views

Sum of Square of the Eigenvalues of Wishart Matrix

Let $A\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times d}$ matrix with iid standard normal entries, and $m\geqslant d$, and define $S=A^T A$. I want to have a tight upper bound for $\sum_{k=1}^d \lambda_k^2$, where $\...
hookah's user avatar
  • 1,096
1 vote
1 answer
301 views

Obtaining a lower bound on the expectation using the Sudakov-Fernique inequality

In my work I wish to obtain a lower bound for the term below. Here the expectation is taken over $h$, a standard random Gaussian vector of length $n$. The minimum is taken over all $\{i_1,\dots,i_L\} \...
Magi's user avatar
  • 281
1 vote
0 answers
79 views

Showing that additive Gaussian noise never increases sparsity

Let $\mathbf{1}\in\mathbb{R}^d$ be the $d$-dimensional all-ones vector and let $n\sim\mathcal{N}(0, \sigma^2 I_{d\times d})$, show that $$ \frac{\| \mathbf{1} + n \|_1}{\|\mathbf{1} + n \|_2} \ge c \...
Yair Carmon's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
694 views

Asymptotic bound on the total variation distance between a standard multivariate normal and a simple mixture

Let $P = N(\vec{0}, I^d)$ be a standard multivariate Gaussian distribution in $d$ dimensions. Let $Q$ be distributed the same as $P$, except that samples from $Q$ have one of their coordinates, chosen ...
Florian Tramèr's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
185 views

Measure change bound for function of subgaussian r.v

Let $X$ be a (sub)gaussian r.v. on $\mathbb{R}^d$; say $X\sim\mathcal{N}(\mathbf{0},\mathbb{1}_d)$; and let $a\colon\mathbb{R}^d\to [0,1]$ be a function with $\mathbb{E}[a(X)] > 0$. It is not hard ...
Clement C.'s user avatar
  • 1,372
-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 $y \sim \mathcal{N}(0,1)$.
Sebastian Nowozin's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
1k views

Expected determinant of random symmetric matrix with different Gaussian distributions of the diagonal and non-diagonal elements

Consider a random matrix $A \in \mathbb{R}^{N \times N}$ where the elements are random gaussian variables. The mean and variance of the elements are different on the diagonal and the off-diagonal: $\...
Hipstpaka's user avatar
  • 355
2 votes
1 answer
334 views

Gaussian sum VS Brownian motion

Given independent Gaussian $d$ dimensional vectors $G_i$, Let $ \sigma^2_n=\mathbb{E}(\sum_{i \le n} G_i) \cdot (\sum_{i \le n} G_i)^T$. $||\sigma_n^2||$ is norm of $\sigma_n^2$. Is there a $d$-...
jason's user avatar
  • 553
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