We study weak convergence of empirical processes of dependent data $(X_i)_{i\geq0}$, indexed by classes of functions. Our results are especially suitable for data arising from dynamical systems and Markov chains, where the central limit theorem for partial sums of observables is commonly derived via the spectral gap technique. We are specifically interested in situations where the index class ${\mathcal{F}}$ is different from the class of functions $f$ for which we have good properties of the observables $(f(X_i))_{i\geq0}$. We introduce a new bracketing number to measure the size of the index class ${\mathcal{F}}$ which fits this setting. Our results apply to the empirical process of data $(X_i)_{i\geq0}$ satisfying a multiple mixing condition. This includes dynamical systems and Markov chains, if the Perron-Frobenius operator or the Markov operator has a spectral gap, but also extends beyond this class, for example, to ergodic torus automorphisms.
Let $(X_j)_{j\geq1}$ be a multivariate long-range dependent Gaussian process. We study the asymptotic behavior of the corresponding sequential empirical process indexed by a class of functions. If some entropy condition is satisfied we have weak convergence to a linear combination of Hermite processes.
We study the asymptotic behavior of empirical processes generated by measurable bounded functions of an infinite source Poisson transmission process when the session length have infinite variance. In spite of the boundedness of the function, the normalized fluctuations of such an empirical process converge to a non-Gaussian stable process. This phenomenon can be viewed as caused by the long-range dependence in the transmission process. Completing previous results on the empirical mean of similar types of processes, our results on non-linear bounded functions exhibit the influence of the limit …
The purpose of this paper is to prove a weak convergence result for empirical processes indexed in general classes of functions and with an underlying $α$-mixing sequence of random variables. In particular the uniformly boundedness assumption on the function class, which is required in most of the existing literature, is spared. Furthermore under strict stationarity a weak convergence result for the sequential empirical process indexed in function classes is obtained, as a direct consequence. Two examples in mathematical statistics, that cannot be treated with existing results, are given as po…
We study two empirical process of special structure: firstly, the centred multiplier process indexed by a class $F$, $f \to \left|\sum_{i=1}^N (ξ_i f(X_i) - \E ξf)\right|$, where the i.i.d. multipliers $(ξ_i)_{i=1}^N$ need not be independent of $(X_i)_{i=1}^N$, and secondly, $(f,h) \to \left|\sum_{i=1}^N (f(X_i)h(X_i)-\E f h) \right|$, the centred product process indexed by the classes $F$ and $H$. We use chaining methods to obtain high probability upper bounds on the suprema of the two processes using a natural variation of Talagrand's $γ$-functionals.
Given a finite typed rooted tree $T$ with $n$ vertices, the {\em empirical subtree measure} is the uniform measure on the $n$ typed subtrees of $T$ formed by taking all descendants of a single vertex. We prove a large deviation principle in $n$, with explicit rate function, for the empirical subtree measures of multitype Galton-Watson trees conditioned to have exactly $n$ vertices. In the process, we extend the notions of shift-invariance and specific relative entropy--as typically understood for Markov fields on deterministic graphs such as $\mathbb Z^d$--to Markov fields on random trees. We …
We consider a sequence of Markov chains $(\mathcal X^n)_{n=1,2,...}$ with $\mathcal X^n = (X^n_σ)_{σ\in\mathcal T}$, indexed by the full binary tree $\mathcal T = \mathcal T_0 \cup \mathcal T_1 \cup ...$, where $\mathcal T_k$ is the $k$th generation of $\mathcal T$. In addition, let $(Σ_k)_{k=0,1,2,...}$ be a random walk on $\mathcal T$ with $Σ_k \in \mathcal T_k$ and $\widetilde{\mathcal R}^n = (\widetilde R_t^n)_{t\geq 0}$ with $\widetilde R_t^n := X_{Σ_{[tn]}}$, arising by observing the Markov chain $\mathcal X^n$ along the random walk. We present a law of large numbers concerning the empir…
In this paper, we obtain some uniform laws of large numbers and functional central limit theorems for sequential empirical measure processes indexed by classes of product functions satisfying appropriate Vapnik-Chervonenkis properties.
We study the evolution of a particle system whose genealogy is given by a supercritical continuous time Galton--Watson tree. The particles move independently according to a Markov process and when a branching event occurs, the offspring locations depend on the position of the mother and the number of offspring. We prove a law of large numbers for the empirical measure of individuals alive at time t. This relies on a probabilistic interpretation of its intensity by mean of an auxiliary process. The latter has the same generator as the Markov process along the branches plus additional jumps, ass…
Let $F$ be a class of functions on a probability space $(Ω,μ)$ and let $X_1,...,X_k$ be independent random variables distributed according to $μ$. We establish high probability tail estimates of the form $\sup_{f \in F} |\{i : |f(X_i)| \geq t \}$ using a natural parameter associated with $F$. We use this result to analyze weakly bounded empirical processes indexed by $F$ and processes of the form $Z_f=|k^{-1}\sum_{i=1}^k |f|^p(X_i)-\E|f|^p|$ for $p>1$. We also present some geometric applications of this approach, based on properties of the random operator $Γ=k^{-1/2}\sum_{i=1}^k \inr{X_i,\cdot…
We investigate the convergence in distribution of sequential empirical processes of dependent data indexed by a class of functions F. Our technique is suitable for processes that satisfy a multiple mixing condition on a space of functions which differs from the class F. This situation occurs in the case of data arising from dynamical systems or Markov chains, for which the Perron--Frobenius or Markov operator, respectively, has a spectral gap on a restricted space. We provide applications to iterative Lipschitz models that contract on average.
Motivated by mathematical tissue growth modelling, we consider the problem of approximating the dynamics of multicolor Pólya urn processes that start with large numbers of balls of different colors and run for a long time. Using strong approximation theorems for empirical and quantile processes, we establish Gaussian process approximations for the Pólya urn processes. The approximating processes are sums of a multivariate Brownian motion process and an independent linear drift with a random Gaussian coefficient. Which of the two terms dominates depends on the ratio of the number of time steps …
We obtain non-asymptotic Gaussian concentration bounds for the difference between the invariant measure $ν$ of an ergodic Brownian diffusion process and the empirical distribution of an approximating scheme with decreasing time step along a suitable class of (smooth enough) test functions f such that f -- $ν$(f) is a coboundary of the infinitesimal generator. We show that these bounds can still be improved when the (squared) Fr{ö}benius norm of the diffusion coefficient lies in this class. We apply these bounds to design computable non-asymptotic confidence intervals for the approximating sche…
We study the empirical process indexed by F^2=\{f^2 : f \in F\}, where F is a class of mean-zero functions on a probability space. We present a sharp bound on the supremum of that process which depends on the ψ_1 diameter of the class F (rather than on the ψ_2 one) and on the complexity parameter γ_2(F,ψ_2). In addition, we present optimal bounds on the random diameters \sup_{f \in F} \max_{|I|=m} (\sum_{i \in I} f^2(X_i))^{1/2} using the same parameters. As applications, we extend several well known results in Asymptotic Geometric Analysis to any isotropic, log-concave ensemble on R^n.
We consider the empirical process G_t of a one-dimensional diffusion with finite speed measure, indexed by a collection of functions F. By the central limit theorem for diffusions, the finite-dimensional distributions of G_t converge weakly to those of a zero-mean Gaussian random process G. We prove that the weak convergence G_t\Rightarrow G takes place in \ell^{\infty}(F) if and only if the limit G exists as a tight, Borel measurable map. The proof relies on majorizing measure techniques for continuous martingales. Applications include the weak convergence of the local time density estimator …
This paper develops a new direct approach to approximating suprema of general empirical processes by a sequence of suprema of Gaussian processes, without taking the route of approximating whole empirical processes in the sup-norm. We prove an abstract approximation theorem applicable to a wide variety of statistical problems, such as construction of uniform confidence bands for functions. Notably, the bound in the main approximation theorem is nonasymptotic and the theorem allows for functions that index the empirical process to be unbounded and have entropy divergent with the sample size. The…
We consider matrix-valued processes described as solutions to stochastic differential equations of very general form. We study the family of the empirical measure-valued processes constructed from the corresponding eigenvalues. We show that the family indexed by the size of the matrix is tight under very mild assumptions on the coefficients of the initial SDE. We characterize the limiting distributions of its subsequences as solutions to an integral equation. We use this result to study some universality classes of random matrix flows. These generalize the classical results related to Dyson Br…
