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4 votes
1 answer
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Distribution of the $pn$ shortest edges out of $n$ uniform points, $p\to 0$

Suppose I sample $n$ points independently and uniformly at random in the unit square, and then I select the $pn$ shortest edges between all pairs of points, for fixed $0<p<1$. For large $n$ and ...
Tom Solberg's user avatar
  • 4,049
8 votes
2 answers
976 views

Approximation of Wasserstein distance between $p_\theta$ and $p_{\theta + d\theta}$

Given a parametric family of distributions $\{p_\theta\mid\theta \in \Theta\}$, one can show that under some regularity conditions, the following approximation is valid $$\operatorname{KL}(p_\theta\...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,853
28 votes
5 answers
2k views

Moments of area of random triangle inscribed in a circle

The $2m$th moment of the (random) area of the triangle whose vertices are three independent, uniformly distributed random points on the unit circle appears to be $((3m)!/(m!)^3)/16^m$. Can anyone ...
James Propp's user avatar
  • 19.7k
0 votes
0 answers
165 views

Probability that the perturbed convex hull is larger than the original one

I am wondering if any convex geometers/probabilists have looked at the following question: Given $n$ randomly distributed (not sure what assumption to put there) points in $\mathbb{R}^d$, for each ...
user3799934'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
1 vote
0 answers
94 views

Measure of the boundary of the support of a certain function defined by an expectation

Suppose: $\mathcal{S} = \{ S \in \mathbb{R}^d \ | \ S_i > 0, \forall i = 1,...,d \} $ $R$ is a random vector (on some probability space, $\Omega$) such that, $R: \Omega \to \mathcal{S}$. $h : ...
d_797's user avatar
  • 111
0 votes
0 answers
137 views

Expected Number of Triangles

A unit square is divided up with $n$ random lines. The random lines are chosen as follows, we choose one side of the square and pick a random point on that side. From there we choose a random point on ...
Pierre Humbert Leblanc's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
2k views

The distribution of the number of chord intersections

This is a follow-up to this question: Given $n$ random chords of a circle, what is the distribution of the number of intersections? Random is defined by "endpoints uniform on the circle". Update ...
Igor Rivin's user avatar
  • 96.4k
3 votes
2 answers
590 views

The Largest Piece of Circumference

We add $n$ random lines to the unit disc. We do so by adding two points on the disc, transcribing a line between them and extending that line to the boundary of the disc, namely the unit circle. Each ...
John Smith's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
85 views

Expected Largest Area with Random Lines

We take the unit square and have it divided by $n$ lines which are chosen randomly. We choose the lines as follows, choose one of the four sides of the square at random and then choose a random point ...
John Smith's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
899 views

norm of projection of a random vector on the sphere onto a linear subspace

Let $x$ be a random vector uniformly distributed on the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^{D-1}$ and let $\mathcal{V}$ be a linear subspace of dimension $m$. Then it is known that the euclidean norm of the ...
Manos's user avatar
  • 398
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
1 vote
1 answer
234 views

When is the second largest Gaussian r.v. the largest in the stochastic sense?

Let $X_1, \ldots, X_n$ be jointly Gaussian, each of which is marginally distributed as a standard Gaussian $N(0,1)$. It is well known that $\max |X_i|$ achieves the maximum in the stochastic sense if $...
John Wong's user avatar
  • 773
4 votes
1 answer
355 views

Random spherical caps cover a spherical cap

Let $S^{n-1}$ be the unit sphere in $n$ dimensional Euclidean space. Define the spherical cap at $x \in S^{n-1}$ with angle $\theta$ to be $C(x,\theta) = \{z \in S^{n-1} \mid z^\top x \geq \cos(\theta)...
Cong Ma's user avatar
  • 83
4 votes
1 answer
133 views

Union of random half spaces cover a ray

Let $x, y \in \mathbb{R}^{n}$ be two fixed unit vectors with angle $\alpha \in (\frac{\pi}{2}, \frac{3\pi}{4})$. Define the positive half space associated with a vector $z$ to be $\mathcal{H}(z) = \{h ...
Cong Ma's user avatar
  • 83
4 votes
1 answer
910 views

Uniformly Random Independent Unit Vectors Inner Product Limit

Suppose $V$ is a $N\times n$ matrix the columns of which are independently distributed uniformly on $\mathbf S^{N-1}$ the surface of the unit sphere in $\mathbf R^N$. I conjecture that $V^TV$ ...
Hans's user avatar
  • 2,239
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

Total progeny of a Galton-Watson branching process - standard textbook question

While analyzing some parallel-computing related algorithm, I came across a probability distribution with a particularly nice property (at least to me), but I am unable to write it down explicitly. ...
Matjaž Krnc's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
431 views

Properties of moment generating function of random walk on unit sphere

Question in brief Let $a$ and $b$ be unit vectors in $\mathbb{R}^d$. Let $f$ be the $1-step$ transition function of a random walk on the $d$ dimensional unit sphere. I am interested in evaluating $\...
Pushpendre's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
460 views

The expectation of two sides of rectangle is equal. Can we deduce that in the expectation the rectangle is not very far from being a square?

Let $T$ be a set of $n\ge 3$ points in the plane such that not all of them lie in a common line. Pick two distinct points $\{a=\left( \begin{array}{c} a_{1} \\a_{2} \end{array} \right) ,b=\left( \...
j.s.'s user avatar
  • 519
3 votes
0 answers
133 views

Partitioning a sphere with a random tessellation

I have a $d$-dimensional sphere of radius $1$. I now tessellate the space with $d$-dimensional cubes of side $L$ and uniform distribution of the origin of the tessellation. Thus the size of the ...
etal's user avatar
  • 162
6 votes
1 answer
188 views

Does there exist a Penalized Conditional Expectation?

In my recent work I've become interested in working with the minimizer of $$ \mathbb{E}[(Y-Z)^2] + \lambda P(Z), $$ $Y$ is an observed random variable, $P$ is a positive-convex penalty function, $Z$ ...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
1 vote
2 answers
2k views

Minimum distance between $n$ points in a cube

What is the expected value for the minimum distance between $n$ points placed randomly, assuming a uniform distribution, within a cube of volume $V$?
RazvanD's user avatar
  • 31
4 votes
0 answers
180 views

Volume difference in random approximation of polytope

The following easily stated problem has arisen in my research. However, it's outside my field, and I'm unfamiliar with the literature. I would greatly appreciate any references. Let $K\subset \...
Paul Constantine's user avatar
13 votes
4 answers
535 views

Alignment of random points

Whenever I draw randomly about ten points, I see that there will be always 3 points that are "almost" collinear. This observation leads me to considering the following questions: Question 1: Suppose $...
Minh-Toan's user avatar
  • 131
10 votes
2 answers
847 views

Minimum separation among $m$ random points on an $n$-dimensional unit sphere

Consider $m$ points $v_1, \ldots, v_m \in R^{n}$, which are uniformly distributed on the $n$-dimensional unit sphere $S^{n-1} = \{v:\|v\|_2 = 1\}$. Let the minimum separation be $$ \rho = \min_{i,j\in{...
Minkov's user avatar
  • 1,127
14 votes
2 answers
319 views

Shortest path through $n^{1/3}$ points out of $n$

Say I sample $n$ points uniformly at random in the unit cube in $\mathbb{R}^3$, and then I look for the shortest path through $n^{1/3}$ of those points (rounding up, say). What happens to the length ...
Kellar's user avatar
  • 141
3 votes
0 answers
134 views

Algorithm to calculate moments of uniform distribution on convex polyhedra

There is system of linear inequalities $$ Ax \leq K, $$ $$ x\geq a, x\leq b. $$ $A$ is $(n\times m)$-matrix, where $n\approx 100$ and $m\approx 10000$, $rank(A)=n$. Suppose that on set of solutions ...
Fedor Nikitin's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
286 views

Upper tail concentration of sample covariance matrices

I'm interested in concentration of the following random matrix sum in spectral norm $\frac{1}{m}\sum_{k=1}^m b_k^2\mathbf{a}_k\mathbf{a}_k^*$ Here $\mathbf{a}_k\in\mathbb{R}^n$ are i.i.d. standard ...
Anahita's user avatar
  • 363
10 votes
1 answer
484 views

Stochastic Covering Number of a Convex Set

Consider a convex set, say $S = [0,1]^d$. Let $X_1, X_2,\ldots,X_n, \ldots$ be i.i.d. random variables that are uniformly distributed on $S$. Denote the Euclidean ball centered at $x \in \mathbb{R}^d$ ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 1,127
6 votes
3 answers
298 views

Probability of random geodesics on the half-sphere intersecting

4 end points (a,b,c,d say) are chosen uniformly randomly and connected a to b and c to d by two geodesics on the 2-dim half-sphere. Here, uniform means that, probability that a point lies on a surface ...
Rahul Gangopadhyay's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
757 views

Length of nearest neighbor path in travel salesman problem

Given $n$ nodes uniformly distributed in $[0,1]^2$, consider the nearest neighbor algorithm to solve traveling salesman problem, i.e., each time I select the nearest neighbor not visited so far as the ...
lchen's user avatar
  • 367
4 votes
1 answer
447 views

Area enclosed by Brownian motion (without winding number)

The question Average Value of Area Closed by Brownian Motion turned out to be about the Lévy area process, which measures "signed area with multiplicity" enclosed by Brownian motion (e.g. each ...
Nate Eldredge's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
150 views

Probability Content of a random ball in R^n

As a follow up to this question, concerning this paper: Given random variables $X_1,\ldots,X_N,X_q:\Omega\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^d$, where $X_1,\ldots,X_N$ are independent and identical distributed. ...
Skrodde's user avatar
  • 329
0 votes
1 answer
292 views

Volume of randomly changing sphere follows beta distribution

We are given $X,X_1,\ldots,X_N$ independent and identically distributed $k$-dimensional vectors. For a given query point $X_q\in\mathbb{R}^k$ assume without loss of generality that $X_1,\ldots,X_m$ ...
Skrodde's user avatar
  • 329
3 votes
1 answer
492 views

Random non-intersecting circles in the plane

If I give a finite region of $\mathbb{R}^{2}$ and place $k$ circles of radius $r(k)$ uniformly at random inside, are there any known results for the probability that the circles do not overlap? ...
Pavan Sangha's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
454 views

Reference: Bochner Integral`

What would be an easily accessible book dealing with Bochner integration as applied to probability theory (I'm looking to understand random elements and their basic related concepts in a formal yet ...
ABIM's user avatar
  • 5,405
10 votes
4 answers
904 views

The distribution of the shortest path through $n$ points

In the big picture, I'd like to know: if I sample $n$ points uniformly at random in the unit square, what is the probability that the shortest path that visits each one of them is very small? More ...
Will Schaefer's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
234 views

Strong Dependence

I don't know if this definition has been already given. Suppose $X$ and $Y$ are two random variables over finite alphabets $\mathcal{X}$ and $\mathcal{Y}$. We say $Y$ is strongly dependent on $X$ if ...
math-Student's user avatar
  • 1,109
30 votes
2 answers
1k views

Shortest path through $\sqrt{n}$ points out of $n$

Say I sample $n$ points uniformly at random in the unit square, and then I look for the shortest path through $\sqrt{n}$ of those points (rounding up, say). What happens to the length of this path as ...
Kellar's user avatar
  • 335
12 votes
2 answers
928 views

The metric of the expected difference of random variables

Suppose we have a set of independent random variables $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ over $\mathbb{R}$. It is easy to see that $$d_{ij}=E[|X_i-X_j|]$$ satisfy the triangle inequality. Is there any study of such ...
jian's user avatar
  • 401
3 votes
2 answers
207 views

Connectivity of points sampled in a grid

Suppose that I partition an $n\times n$ square into $n^2$ squares $S_1 ,\dots, S_{n^2}$ each of area $1$, and then I sample a point $X_i$ uniformly at random in each $S_{i}$. Now fix a radius $r$ and ...
Will Crosby's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
242 views

What transformations preserve the von Mises distribution?

The von Mises distribution is entirely defined on the circle with a density given by $$f(x) = (2\,\pi\, I_0(\kappa))^{-1} \exp(\kappa \cos(x-\mu))\ ,$$ where $x$ is in an arbitrary real interval of ...
Igor's user avatar
  • 236
5 votes
4 answers
906 views

Probability that convex hull of multivariate Gaussian sample contains a given point

I am generating random vectors $X_1, \dots, X_N$ from a $d$-dimensional multivariate normal $\text N(\mu, \Sigma)$. I would like to know what is the probability that a given point $y \in R^d$ falls ...
Jugurtha's user avatar
  • 101
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

Do Random Walks on the Hexagonal Lattice have a limit?

For every positive integer $n$, consider a regular hexagon $\mathrm{H}_n$ such that the distance of each vertex from the center is $\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}$. That in turn induces a tiling of $\mathbb{R}^...
Ritwik's user avatar
  • 3,245
0 votes
1 answer
197 views

Area on the unit sphere swept out by big circles corresponding to a curve

For a point on the unit sphere, we know the plane perpendicular to the line through the origin and the point cuts the sphere with a big circle. When the point moves along a sphere curve, the ...
Jiange Li's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
415 views

Sums of uniformly random vectors from the $n$-dimensional unit ball

I'm interested in some instances of the following problem. Let $n \geq 2$, and suppose we draw $k \geq 2$ vectors $v_1, \dots, v_k$ uniformly at random from the $n$-dimensional ball of radius $1$, $...
TMM's user avatar
  • 733
4 votes
0 answers
481 views

The probability distribution for the number of pairwise distances $\leq$ some threshold for points uniformly placed in a sphere

If I place place $N$ particles in a sphere of radius $R$, selecting positions across the sphere's volume with uniform probability, what is the exact probability distribution for the number of pairwise ...
LHoward's user avatar
  • 41
4 votes
1 answer
275 views

Nontrivial lower bounds on Cheeger inequalities for Markov chains

For a reversible Markov chain $X_{t}$ on $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ with transition kernel $K$ and stationary distribution $\pi$, it is well-known that the `spectral gap' (basically, the size of $K$ when ...
qams3's user avatar
  • 51
1 vote
0 answers
245 views

Random walk conditioned on sum and last step

Can anyone help with the following (slightly weird) random walk question? I have a random walk starting at $X_0 = 1 = S_0$ where the steps $X_i$ are independent uniform random variates in $[-1,1]$. ...
Jason Cantarella's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
396 views

Manhattan distance vs. absorption time on an unbounded integer lattice

Imagine I have unbounded $d$-dimensional integer lattice where I take two vertices, $v_a$ and $v_b$, separated by a fixed Manhattan distance $L$, and I release a random walker at $v_a$ and allow for ...
FloatingForest's user avatar