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-1 votes
1 answer
550 views

Lower bound of an expectation

Suppose a random variable $X$ has unit variance i.e. $\sigma^{2} = 1$. Is there a positive constant $c > 0$ such that $$\mathbb{E}[\ | X - \mathbb{E}[X] | \ ] \ge c $$ My attempt of a solution is ...
0 votes
0 answers
84 views

Determining the tails of a convolution from its behavior on a compact set

Let $p$ be a smooth (say, $C^\infty$, but this is not crucial) density on the interval $I=[0,1]$ and $g_\sigma$ be the density of $N(0,\sigma^2)$. Define $f=p\ast g_\sigma$. To what extent does the ...
2 votes
0 answers
192 views

Convergence of Gibbs distribution to Dirac measure [closed]

Consider the probability density function on $R^d$ for a continuous function $F: R^d \to R$: $$ q_{\varepsilon}(x) = \frac{1}{Z} \exp\left(-\frac{1}{\varepsilon} F(x)\right). $$ Denote $x^* = \arg \...
10 votes
1 answer
330 views

(Sharp) Bounds on $E(XYZ)$ given all the bivariate marginals

Suppose $X,Y,Z$ are all real-valued random variables. Suppose I know the joint marginal distributions of $(X,Y)$, $(Y,Z)$ and $(X,Z)$. I want to find bounds on $E(XYZ)$. In the case of bounding $E(XY)$...
1 vote
0 answers
100 views

Exponential decay of a random matrix falling into a ball

Let $A=U\Sigma V^T\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ be a random matrix defined in the following way: $U,V$ are uniformly distributed on the orthogonal group $O(n)$, $\Sigma$ is a diagonal matrix such that ...
0 votes
1 answer
306 views

Regularity properties of conditional distributions

Let $(X,Y)\in\mathbb{R}^n\times\mathbb{R}^m$ be a pair of random variables with joint density $p(x,y)$. I am interested in the regularity properties of the conditional densities $p(y|x)$ and $p(x|y)$ (...
9 votes
1 answer
950 views

Sort-of converse of Kolmogorov zero-one theorem

Let $(\Omega, \mathscr F, \mathbb P)$ be a probability space. The Kolmogorov zero-one theorem states that Suppose we have independent random variables $X_1, X_2, ...$. Then $\forall \ A \in \bigcap_n ...
3 votes
2 answers
287 views

Conditions for the existence of von Neumann-Morgenstern utility on a Polish space

Let $X$ be a Polish space, i.e. a separable complete metric space. Any Borel probability measure on $X$ must be locally finite, outer regular and tight. Let $\mathcal{P}(X)$ be the set of all Borel ...
0 votes
1 answer
91 views

Asymptotic moment of a multivariate normal distribution

Let the pdf of a multivariate normal distribution be \begin{equation} p_{Z}(\mathbf{z})=\frac{1}{\left(2\pi \sigma^2 \right)^{k/2}}\exp(-{\mathbf{z}}^{\text{T}}\mathbf{z}/2\sigma^2). \end{equation}...
2 votes
1 answer
119 views

Exact formula or non-trivial upper bound on p-norm of $f(x)=\|x\|_2$ in $[0,1)^d$

I wonder whether one can exactly calculate the following integral in terms of $d$ and $p\geq 1$ or not, or a better bound(than the trivial one I am going to give) in terms of $d,p$: $$\left(\int_{[0,1)...
4 votes
1 answer
325 views

Fourier-positivity of a certain function

I am wondering how to prove the below Fourier transform is non-negative? I did much simulation and it seems to be non-negative. $$\int_0^\inf (be^{-at^p}-ae^{-bt^p})\cos(tx)dt, 0<a<b, \frac{1}{2}...
1 vote
0 answers
213 views

How to prove the Fourier transform of $e^{-x^p}$ is positive [duplicate]

I wonder how to prove that $$\int_0^\infty\exp(-x^p)\cos(tx)\,dt\geq 0, \quad \frac{1}{2}<p<1.$$ This conclusion is used in the answer to another question here Looking for sufficient conditions ...
2 votes
0 answers
115 views

Least positive value of a random polynomial

Fix a positive even integer $d$ and consider the polynomial $f(x)=c_d x^d+\ldots+c_1x+c_0$, where the $c_i$ are independent random variables that follow the uniform distribution in the interval $[-1,1]...
4 votes
0 answers
656 views

Eigenvalues of Matérn covariance function

Recall that Matérn covariance function $C_\nu(d)$ is defined as $$ C_\nu(d)=\sigma^2\frac{2^{1-\nu}}{\Gamma(\nu)}\left(\sqrt{2\nu}\frac{d}{\rho}\right)^\nu K_\nu\left(\sqrt{2\nu}\frac{d}{\rho}\right), ...
0 votes
0 answers
67 views

LLN of random nearest neighbor function

There are two samples of iid random variates: $X=\{X_1,X_2,...,X_n\}$ and $Y=\{Y_1,Y_2,...,Y_n\}$. Further, $\forall i,j: X_i$ is independent of $Y_j$. The probability distributions $P,Q$ are unknown ...
1 vote
0 answers
77 views

Divergence between random variables after transformation

Let $X$ and $Y$ be random variables with laws $\mu_X$, $\mu_Y$ and $d$ be some $f$-divergence (e.g. KL, total variation, Hellinger). Writing $d(X,Y)$ for the divergence between $\mu_X$ and $\mu_Y$, ...
2 votes
1 answer
268 views

Monotonicity of the Hellinger integral/distance

Let $p$ and $q$ be probability densities on $\mathbb R$, with respect to the Lebesgue measure $dx$. The corresponding Hellinger integral and distance are $H(p,q):=\int_{\mathbb R}\sqrt{pq}\,dx$ and $\...
-6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Is there a transformation or a proof for these integrals?

Here are certain weighted Gaussian integrals I have encountered for which numerical computation reassures equality. Question. Is this true? If so, is there an underlying transformation or just a ...
2 votes
1 answer
268 views

Existence of the derivative of functionals of Brownian motion

Let $v(x, t) = \mathbb E [f(x + W_t)]$ with a Brownian motion $W$. Then, Malliavin calculus leads to the sensitivity in $x$: $$\partial_x v(x, t) = \frac{1}{t} \mathbb E [ f(x + W_t) W_t ].$$ I am ...
5 votes
2 answers
202 views

Monotonicity of a parametric integral

For real $x>0$, let $$f(x):=\frac1{\sqrt x}\,\int_0^\infty\frac{1-\exp\{-x\, (1-\cos t)\}}{t^2}\,dt.$$ How to prove that $f$ is increasing on $(0,\infty)$? Here is the graph $\{(x,f(x))\colon0<...
12 votes
3 answers
2k views

Looking for sufficient conditions for positive Fourier transforms

I am looking for some sufficient conditions for an even, continuous, nonnegative, non-increasing, non-convex function to be non-negative definite. In other words $$ \int_0^\infty f(x)\cos(x\omega) \, ...
2 votes
1 answer
180 views

Random sequence with positive Lyapunov exponent?

Consider the following self-adjoint matrix $A_X = \begin{pmatrix} 0 & -i \\ i & X \end{pmatrix},$ where $i$ is the imaginary unit and $X$ is a uniformly distributed random variable on some ...
4 votes
1 answer
487 views

Finiteness of Hausdorff measure of balls

Let $(X,d)$ be an arbitrary metric space and let $\Bbb B(x,r)$ denote the closed ball with center $x \in X$ and radius $r>0$. For $p\geq 0$, let $H^p$ denote the $p$- dimensional Hausdorff measure. ...
3 votes
1 answer
246 views

How well can we approximate a given continuous random variable by a weighted sum of several i.i.d uniform variables?

Consider a continuous random variable $X$ with the compact support $[0,1]$. For given $N\in\mathbb{N}$, we define the weighted sum as $$ S_N=\sum_{i=1}^N a_iU_i, $$ where $U_i$ are i.i.d. random ...
1 vote
0 answers
81 views

Finding the K-means of the normal distribution

Let $K\in\mathbb N^+$ be a parameter. Given a distribution $q$ over the real numbers, K-means clustering aims to find $K$ centroids $c_1,\ldots,c_k\in\mathbb R$ that minimize $$ \int_{-\infty}^\infty ...
2 votes
1 answer
289 views

On semi-discrete Wasserstein distance

Let $\mu(dx)=\sum_{i=1}^np_i\delta_{x_i}(dx)$ and $\nu(dy)=\rho(y)dy$ be two probability measures on $\mathbb R^d$, where $\nu$ has a bounded support. Consider the $2-$Wasserstein distance below: $$...
2 votes
1 answer
154 views

Smooth conditional expectation with nonsmooth "reverse"

I am looking for a concrete example of the following: $(X,Y)$ are real-valued random variables such that: $E[Y|X]$ is smooth $E[X|Y]$ is discontinuous Even better, I'd like to see an example where ...
1 vote
1 answer
166 views

Discontinuity set of the expected value of a continuous process

Let $X_t$ be a continuous real valued stochastic process on $\mathbb R_+$. Then it is not necessarily true that $E[X_t]$ is continuous in $t$. Question: What is known about the discontinuity set of $E[...
6 votes
1 answer
904 views

A problem on rate of decay of fill distance?

Let $X$ be a random variable with values in a closed compact $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^m$. Assume $\Omega$ is has a Lipschitz boundary. Let $p(x)$ be the probability density function of $X$ and ...
6 votes
2 answers
333 views

Is there a way to reconstruct the convolution $(f * g)(x)$ of $f$ with a Gaussian $g$ from sampled values, $(f*g)(a), a \in A$?

Suppose that $f: \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{C}$ is a function which has support in $[-1,1]$. Let $g = g_\sigma$ be a centered Gaussian with variance $\sigma^2$. Is there a way to reconstruct the ...
4 votes
1 answer
96 views

Estimate of $\frac{\int x^{2p}\,e^{-x^{2n}\,+\,\omega(x,y)}\;dx}{\int e^{-x^{2n}\,+\,\omega(x,y)}\;dx}$

For every $x,y\in\mathbb R$ let $$ V(x,y) \,\equiv\, a\,x^{2n} + b\,y^{2m} - \omega(x,y)\,$$ where $a,b>0$, $n,m\in\mathbb N$, $n\geq m\geq1$, and $\omega$ is such that $\omega(x,y)/(x^{2n}+y^{2m})...
4 votes
2 answers
175 views

Almost independence of $x^\top a$ and $x^\top b$ for $x$ uniform on the sphere in $\mathbb R^d$ and $a,b \in \mathbb R^d$ with $a^\top b = 0$

Let $d$ be a large positive integer. Let $x$ be uniformly distributed on the unit-sphere in $\mathbb R^d$ and let $a$ and $b$ be perpendicular vectors in $\mathbb R^d$, i.e such that $a^\top b=0$. Let ...
0 votes
1 answer
134 views

Integral bound for square of log derivative

I am currently facing the following problem: Given a polynomial $f(x) = \sum_{s \in S_f} u_s x^s$, $f(0)\neq 0$, $\lvert S_f \rvert \leq t$ (i.e. $f$ is $t$-sparse) with $u_s$ coming as samples from i....
1 vote
0 answers
38 views

Uniform boundedness of Green Function

This post has already been on StackExchange but hasn't received any answers. Since its origin is a research paper, I thought that maybe this forum might be a better place for it. If you disagree ...
3 votes
2 answers
71 views

Optimal scaling of Lipschitz estimates in generalized geometric series

If we did not know it before, then wikipedia teaches us the generalized geometric series $$\sum_{n \ge 0} \binom{n+k}{n} (1-\mu)^{n} \mu^k = \frac{1}{\mu}.$$ We can then study for $0 <\varepsilon &...
2 votes
1 answer
178 views

Non-convergence to a Gaussian

Let $f_n: \mathbb R^2 \rightarrow \mathbb R$ be a family of probability distributions with the property that they vanish on the diagonal $f_n(x,x)=0.$ I would like to know: Can we show that a ...
2 votes
2 answers
201 views

Functional equations and normal distribution

Let $\alpha \neq 1.$ If $X,Y$ are two independent random variable such that $U=X+Y$ and $V=X+\alpha Y$ are independent, then $X$ and $Y$ are normally distributed. In term of characteristic functions ...
1 vote
0 answers
65 views

Normalizing constants preserve metric entropy

Suppose $\mathcal{F}=\left\{f\in L^2([a,b]): 0<\underline{c}\leq f\leq\overline{c} \right\}$. Consider the following transformation $$\tilde{\mathcal{F}} := \left\{\frac{f}{\int f d\mu}: f\in \...
2 votes
0 answers
104 views

Weak convergence rates for integral operators

Suppose $q=\sum_{i=1}^m\pi_i\delta_{x_i}$ is a discrete measure on $\mathbb{R}^n$ and let $q\ast \varphi_\epsilon$ denote the convolution of $q$ with some mollifier $\varphi_\epsilon$, so that $q\ast\...
1 vote
1 answer
368 views

Does the almost sure convergence of absolutely continuous r.v.'s imply the weak convergence of the pdf's in $(L^\infty)^*$?

The following question was asked in a comment at Almost sure convergence vs convergence of probability density functions : Suppose that $(X_n)$ is a sequence of random variables (r.v.'s) converging ...
10 votes
2 answers
488 views

A functional equation involving the inverse function

$\newcommand\ep\epsilon\newcommand\R{\mathbb R}$Let $P$ denote the set of all continuous probability density functions (pdf's) $p$ on $\R$ vanishing at $\pm\infty$. Let us say that a pdf $p\in P$ is ...
0 votes
1 answer
141 views

Arbitrarily bad rates of convergence in Wasserstein metric

Suppose $W_p(\mu_n,\mu)\to 0$ and $d(E(\mu_n),E(\mu))<r_n$. Here, $W_p$ is the $p$th-order Wasserstein distance (with respect to the metric $d$) and $\mu_n,\mu$ are probability measures on some ...
2 votes
0 answers
52 views

A certain expectation of a function of independent gammas

Suppose that $Y_1...,Y_n$ are independant gamma random variables: $Y_i \sim \Gamma(\alpha_i,\beta_i)$, with density $f_i(t) = \frac{t^{\alpha_i-1} e^{-\frac{x}{\beta}}}{\Gamma(\alpha) \beta^{\alpha}}$....
8 votes
2 answers
5k views

Proof of Karlin-Rubin's theorem

I asked this question on Math Exchange, but as I did not receive a successful answer, maybe you could help me. Karlin-Rubin's theorem states conditions under which we can find a uniformly most ...
0 votes
1 answer
582 views

Integrability of $\int \log(f(x)) f(x) dx$ for a probability density function $f$

I am looking for weak conditions when a probability density function $f$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$ has a finite integral $$ \int_{\mathbb{R}^d} \log(f(x)) f(x) dx. $$ Any references would be appreciated.
12 votes
1 answer
525 views

An inequality about unit vector orthogonal to $(1,1,...,1)$

Does there exist a constant $\alpha>0$ such that the following holds? $$\liminf_{n\to\infty}\inf_{x\in\mathbb{R}^n, \sum_{i=1}^nx_i^2=1, \sum_{i=1}^nx_i=0}\frac{\sum_{i<j, |i-j|\leq\frac{n}{4}}(...
0 votes
1 answer
159 views

Best bounds on the integral of an increasing function

The following question, somewhat edited here, was asked and then closed at The best bound of the integral of a nondecreasing real function in a closed interval. Let $F\colon[0,1]\to[0,1]$ be a ...
0 votes
1 answer
212 views

Expressing the measure of a set in terms of the characteristic function of the measure

Let $\mu$ be a discrete, finitely supported probability measure in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and denote by $\phi$ be the characteristic function of $\mu$, i.e. $\phi(t)=\mathbb{E}e^{i<t,X>}$, where $X$ is ...
1 vote
1 answer
50 views

Convergence of the sum of a family of real-valued functions

Let $\phi_1,...,\phi_n,...$ be a sequence of real-valued functions so that $\phi_j:[0,1)\to[0,1)$, $\phi_j(0)=0$, and $\phi_j(\delta)$ converges to 0 as $\delta$ approaches 0 from the right for all $j\...
1 vote
1 answer
266 views

Decomposition of the sum of nonnegative random variables [closed]

Non-necessarily independent random variables $X_1,~X_2,~\cdots,~X_n$ are supported on $[0,a_1],~[0,a_2],~\cdots,[0,a_n]$ and with mean values $\mu_1,~\cdots,~\mu_n$ respectively, where all $a_i$ and $\...

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