We provide a permutation invariant version of the strong law of large numbers for exchangeable sequences of random variables. The proof consists of a combination of the Komlós-Berkes theorem, the usual strong law of large numbers for exchangeable sequences and de Finetti's theorem.
The problem of convergence in law of normed sums of exchangeable random variables is examined. First, the problem is studied w.r.t. arrays of exchangeable random variables, and the special role played by mixtures of products of stable laws - as limits in law of normed sums in different rows of the array - is emphasized. Necessary and sufficient conditions for convergence to a specific form in the above class of measures are then given. Moreover, sufficient conditions for convergence of sums in a single row are proved. Finally, a potentially useful variant of the formulation of the results just…
An exchangeable random matrix is a random matrix with distribution invariant under any permutation of the entries. For such random matrices, we show, as the dimension tends to infinity, that the empirical spectral distribution tends to the uniform law on the unit disc. This is an instance of the universality phenomenon known as the circular law, for a model of random matrices with dependent entries, rows, and columns. It is also a non-Hermitian counterpart of a result of Chatterjee on the semi-circular law for random Hermitian matrices with exchangeable entries. The proof relies in particular …
We combine the method of exchangeable pairs with Stein's method for functional approximation. As a result, we give a general linearity condition under which an abstract Gaussian approximation theorem for stochastic processes holds. We apply this approach to estimate the distance of a sum of random variables, chosen from an array according to a random permutation, from a Gaussian mixture process. This result lets us prove a functional combinatorial central limit theorem. We also consider a graph-valued process and bound the speed of convergence of the distribution of its rescaled edge counts to…
Let A be a standard Borel space, and consider the space A^{\bbN^{(k)}} of A-valued arrays indexed by all size-k subsets of \bbN. This paper concerns random measures on such a space whose laws are invariant under the natural action of permutations of \bbN. The main result is a representation theorem for such `exchangeable' random measures, obtained using the classical representation theorems for exchangeable arrays due to de Finetti, Hoover, Aldous and Kallenberg. After proving this representation, two applications of exchangeable random measures are given. The first is a short new proof of the…
A sequence of random variables is called exchangeable if the joint distribution of the sequence is unchanged by any permutation of the indices. De Finetti's theorem characterizes all $\{0,1\}$-valued exchangeable sequences as a "mixture" of sequences of independent random variables. We present an new, elementary proof of de Finetti's Theorem. The purpose of this paper is to make this theorem accessible to a broader community through an essentially self-contained proof.
Let $K_n$ denote the number of distinct values among the first $n$ terms of an infinite exchangeable sequence of random variables $(X_1,X_2,\ldots)$. We prove for $n=3$ that the extreme points of the convex set of all possible laws of $K_3$ are those derived from i.i.d. sampling from discrete uniform distributions and the limit case with $P(K_3=3)=1$, and offer a conjecture for larger $n$. We also consider variants of the problem for finite exchangeable sequences and exchangeable random partitions.
Given a partition $\{I_1,\ldots,I_k\}$ of $\{1,\ldots,n\}$, let $(X_1,\ldots,X_n)$ be random vector with each $X_i$ taking values in an arbitrary measurable space $(S,\mathscr{S})$ such that their joint law is invariant under finite permutations of the indexes within each class $I_j$. Then, it is shown that this law has to be a signed mixture of independent laws and identically distributed within each class $I_j$. The representation is unique if and only if the set of these signed measures is weakly compact. We provide a necessary condition for the existence of a nonnegative directing measure.…
We present a novel analogue for finite exchangeable sequences of the de Finetti, Hewitt and Savage theorem and investigate its implications for multi-marginal optimal transport (MMOT) and Bayesian statistics. If $(Z_1,...,Z_N)$ is a finitely exchangeable sequence of $N$ random variables taking values in some Polish space $X$, we show that the law $μ_k$ of the first $k$ components has a representation of the form $μ_k=\int_{{\mathcal P}_{\frac{1}{N}}(X)} F_{N,k}(λ) \, \mbox{d} α(λ)$ for some probability measure $α$ on the set of $1/N$-quantized probability measures on $X$ and certain universal …
We survey known solutions to the infinite extendibility problem for (necessarily exchangeable) probability laws on $\mathbb{R}^d$, which is: Can a given random vector $\vec{X} = (X_1,\ldots,X_d)$ be represented in distribution as the first $d$ members of an infinite exchangeable sequence of random variables? This is the case if and only if $\vec{X}$ has a stochastic representation that is "conditionally iid" according to the seminal de Finetti's Theorem. Of particular interest are cases in which the original motivation behind the model $\vec{X}$ is not one of conditional independence. After an…
A length-$n$ random sequence $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ in a space $S$ is finitely exchangeable if its distribution is invariant under all $n!$ permutations of coordinates. Given $N > n$, we study the extendibility problem: when is it the case that there is a length-$N$ exchangeable random sequence $Y_1,\ldots, Y_N$ so that $(Y_1,\ldots,Y_n)$ has the same distribution as $(X_1,\ldots,X_n)$? In this paper, we give a necessary and sufficient condition so that, for given $n$ and $N$, the extendibility problem admits a solution. This is done by employing functional-analytic and measure-theoretic arguments t…
We study the number of collisions $X_n$ of an exchangeable coalescent with multiple collisions ($Λ$-coalescent) which starts with $n$ particles and is driven by rates determined by a finite characteristic measure $ν({\rm d}x)=x^{-2}Λ({\rm d}x)$. Via a coupling technique we derive limiting laws of $X_n$, using previous results on regenerative compositions derived from stick-breaking partitions of the unit interval. The possible limiting laws of $X_n$ include normal, stable with index $1\leα<2$ and Mittag-Leffler distributions. The results apply, in particular, to the case when $ν$ is a beta$(a-…
"Ever since the advent of modern quantum mechanics in the late 1920's, the idea has been prevalent that the classical laws of probability cease, in some sense, to be valid in the new theory. [...] The primary object of this presentation is to show that the thesis in question is entirely without validity and is the product of a confused view of the laws of probability" (Koopman, 1957). The secondary objects are: to show that quantum inferences are cases of partially exchangeable statistical models with particular prior constraints; to wonder about such constraints; and to plead for a dialogue b…
Consider a (possibly infinite) exchangeable sequence X={X_n:1\leqn<N}, where N\in N\cup {\infty}, with values in a Borel space (A,A), and note X_n=(X_1,...,X_n). We say that X is Hoeffding decomposable if, for each n, every square integrable, centered and symmetric statistic based on X_n can be written as an orthogonal sum of n U-statistics with degenerated and symmetric kernels of increasing order. The only two examples of Hoeffding decomposable sequences studied in the literature are i.i.d. random variables and extractions without replacement from a finite population. In the first part of th…
A random vector $X=(X_1,\ldots,X_n)$ with the $X_i$ taking values in an arbitrary measurable space $(S, \mathscr{S})$ is exchangeable if its law is the same as that of $(X_{σ(1)}, \ldots, X_{σ(n)})$ for any permutation $σ$. We give an alternative and shorter proof of the representation result (Jaynes \cite{Jay86} and Kerns and Székely \cite{KS06}) stating that the law of $X$ is a mixture of product probability measures with respect to a signed mixing measure. The result is "finitistic" in nature meaning that it is a matter of linear algebra for finite $S$. The passing from finite $S$ to an arb…
De Finetti's classical result of [18] identifying the law of an exchangeable family of random variables as a mixture of i.i.d. laws was extended to structure theorems for more complex notions of exchangeability by Aldous [1,2,3], Hoover [41,42], Kallenberg [44] and Kingman [47]. On the other hand, such exchangeable laws were first related to questions from combinatorics in an independent analysis by Fremlin and Talagrand [29], and again more recently in Tao [62], where they appear as a natural proxy for the `leading order statistics' of colourings of large graphs or hypergraphs. Moreover, this…
The uniform law for sojourn times of processes with cyclically exchangeable increments is extended to the case of random fields, with general parameter sets, that possess a suitable invariance property.
Cramér-type moderate deviation for double index permutation statistics
School of Mathematical Sciences, Dalian University of Technology（大连理工大学数学科学学院）；Department of Statistics and Data Science, Shenzhen International Center for Mathematics, Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学深圳国际数学中心统计与数据科学系）；Department of Statistics and Data Science, Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学统计与数据科学系）
We establish a one-to-one correspondence between (i) exchangeable sequences of random variables whose finite-dimensional distributions are minimum (or maximum) infinitely divisible and (ii) non-negative, non-decreasing, infinitely divisible stochastic processes. The exponent measure of an exchangeable minimum infinitely divisible sequence is shown to be the sum of a very simple ``drift measure'' and a mixture of product probability measures, which uniquely corresponds to the Lévy measure of a non-negative and non-decreasing infinitely divisible process. The latter is shown to be supported on n…
For any partition of $\{1, 2, ..., n\}$ we define its {\it increments} $X_i, 1 \le i \le n$ by $X_i = 1$ if $i$ is the smallest element in the partition block that contains it, $X_i = 0$ otherwise. We prove that for partially exchangeable random partitions (where the probability of a partition depends only on its block sizes in order of appearance), the law of the increments uniquely determines the law of the partition. One consequence is that the Chinese Restaurant Process CRP($θ$) (the partition with distribution given by the Ewens sampling formula with parameter $θ$) is the only exchangeabl…
In this work we analyze the concept of swap-invariance, which is a weaker variant of exchangeability. A random vector $ξ$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is called swap-invariant if $\,{\mathbf E}\,\big| \!\sum_j u_j ξ_j \big|\,$ is invariant under all permutations of $(ξ_1, \ldots, ξ_n)$ for each $u \in \mathbb{R}^n$. We extend this notion to random measures. For a swap-invariant random measure $ξ$ on a measure space $(S,\mathcal{S},μ)$ the vector $(ξ(A_1), \ldots, ξ(A_n))$ is swap-invariant for all disjoint $A_j \in \mathcal{S}$ with equal $μ$-measure. Various characterizations of swap-invariant random me…
Two stochastic representations of multivariate geometric distributions are analyzed, both are obtained by lifting the lack-of-memory (LM) property of the univariate geometric law to the multivariate case. On the one hand, the narrow-sense multivariate geometric law can be considered a discrete equivalent of the well-studied Marshall-Olkin exponential law. On the other hand, the more general wide-sense geometric law is shown to be characterized by the LM property and can differ significantly from its continuous counterpart, e.g., by allowing for negative pairwise correlations. For both families…
We study the model of random permutations of $n$ objects with polynomially growing cycle weights, which was recently considered by Ercolani and Ueltschi, among others. Using saddle-point analysis, we prove that the total variation distance between the process which counts the cycles of size $1, 2, ..., b$ and a process $(Z_1, Z_2, ..., Z_b)$ of independent Poisson random variables converges to $0$ if and only if $b=o(\ell)$ where $\ell$ denotes the length of a typical cycle in this model. By means of this result, we prove a central limit theorem for the order of a permutation and thus extend t…
Mean-field limit of Non-exchangeable interacting diffusions with singular kernels
Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University（北京大学数学中心）；Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院数学与系统科学研究院）；Fakultät für Mathematik, Universität Bielefeld（比勒费尔德大学数学系）；Department of Mathematics, Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学数学系）
It is well-known that, on a purely algebraic level, a simplified algebraic version of the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) can be proved in the framework of a noncommutative probability space, under the hypotheses that the sequence of non-commutative random variables we consider is exchangeable and obeys a certain vanishing condition of some of its joint moments. In this approach (which covers versions for both the classical CLT and the CLT of free probability), the determination of the resulting limit law has to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. In this paper we discuss an instance of the abov…
We consider random permutations derived by sampling from stick-breaking partitions of the unit interval. The cycle structure of such a permutation can be associated with the path of a decreasing Markov chain on $n$ integers. Under certain assumptions on the stick-breaking factor we prove a central limit theorem for the logarithm of the order of the permutation, thus extending the classical Erdős-Turán law for the uniform permutations and its generalization for Ewens' permutations associated with sampling from the PD/GEM$(θ)$ distribution. Our approach is based on using perturbed random walks t…
A consequence of de Finetti's representation theorem is that for every infinite sequence of exchangeable 0-1 random variables $(X_k)_{k\geq1}$, there exists a probability measure $μ$ on the Borel sets of $[0,1]$ such that $\bar X_n = n^{-1} \sum_{i=1}^n X_i$ converges weakly to $μ$. For a wide class of probability measures $μ$ having smooth density on $(0,1)$, we give bounds of order $1/n$ with explicit constants for the Wasserstein distance between the law of $\bar X_n$ and $μ$. This extends a recent result {by} Goldstein and Reinert \cite{goldstein2013stein} regarding the distance between th…
A new type of stochastic dependence for a sequence of random variables is introduced and studied. Precisely, (X_n)_{n\geq 1} is said to be conditionally identically distributed (c.i.d.), with respect to a filtration (G_n)_{n\geq 0}, if it is adapted to (G_n)_{n\geq 0} and, for each n\geq 0, (X_k)_{k>n} is identically distributed given the past G_n. In case G_0={\varnothing,Ω} and G_n=σ(X_1,...,X_n), a result of Kallenberg implies that (X_n)_{n\geq 1} is exchangeable if and only if it is stationary and c.i.d. After giving some natural examples of nonexchangeable c.i.d. sequences, it is shown th…
Let the random variable $Z_{n,k}$ denote the number of increasing subsequences of length $k$ in a random permutation from $S_n$, the symmetric group of permutations of $\{1,...,n\}$. We show that $Var(Z_{n,k_n})=o((EZ_{n,k_n})^2)$ as $ n\to\infty$ if and only if $k_n=o(n^\frac25)$. In particular then, the weak law of large numbers holds for $Z_{n,k_n}$ if $k_n=o(n^\frac25)$. We also show the following approximation result for the uniform measure $U_n$ on $S_n$. Define the probability measure $μ_{n;k_n}$ on $S_n$ as follows: Consider $n$ cards, numbered from 1 to $n$, and laid out on a table fr…
Let $P_n^1,\dots, P_n^d$ be $n\times n$ permutation matrices drawn independently and uniformly at random, and set $S_n^d:=\sum_{\ell=1}^d P_n^\ell$. We show that if $\log^{12}n/(\log \log n)^{4} \le d=O(n)$, then the empirical spectral distribution of $S_n^d/\sqrt{d}$ converges weakly to the circular law in probability as $n \to \infty$.
Let W be either the number of descents or inversions of a permutation. Stein's method is applied to show that W satisfies a central limit theorem with error rate n^(-1/2). The construction of an exchangeable pair (W,W') used in Stein's method is non-trivial and uses a non-reversible Markov chain.
We study spatial permutations with cycle weights that are bounded or slowly diverging. We show that a phase transition occurs at an explicit critical density. The long cycles are macroscopic and their cycle lengths satisfy a Poisson-Dirichlet law.
The Mallows measure is measure on permutations which was introduced by Mallows in connection with ranking problems in statistics. Under this measure, the probability of a permutation $π$ is proportional to $q^{Inv(π)}$ where $q$ is a positive parameter and $Inv(π)$ is the number of inversions in $π$. We consider the length of the longest common subsequence (LCS) of two independently permutations drawn according to $μ_{n,q}$ and $μ_{n,q'}$ for some $q,q' >0$. We show that when $0<q,q'<1$, the limiting law of the LCS is Gaussian. In the regime that $n(1-q) \to \infty$ and $n(1-q') \to \infty$ we…
We study random trees which are invariant in law under the operation of contracting each edge independently with probability $p\in(0,1)$. We show that all such trees can be constructed through Poissonian sampling from a certain class of random measured $\R$-trees satisfying a natural scale invariance property. This has connections to exchangeable partially ordered sets, real-valued self-similar increasing processes and quasi-stationary distributions of Galton--Watson processes.
A random $n$-permutation may be generated by sequentially removing random cards $C_1,...,C_n$ from an $n$-card deck $D = \{1,...,n\}$. The permutation $σ$ is simply the sequence of cards in the order they are removed. This permutation is itself uniformly random, as long as each random card $C_t$ is drawn uniformly from the remaining set at time $t$. We consider, here, a variant of this simple procedure in which one is given a choice between $k$ random cards from the remaining set at each step, and selects the lowest numbered of these for removal. This induces a bias towards selecting lower num…
We introduce a method for studying monotonicity of the speed of excited random walks in high dimensions, based on a formula for the speed obtained via cut-times and Girsanov's transform. While the method gives rise to similar results as have been or can be obtained via the expansion method of van der Hofstad and Holmes, it may be more palatable to a general probabilistic audience. We also revisit the law of large numbers for stationary cookie environments. In particular, we introduce a new notion of $e_1-$exchangeable cookie environment and prove the law of large numbers for this case.
Let the random variable $Z_{n,k}$ denote the number of increasing subsequences of length $k$ in a random permutation from $S_n$, the symmetric group of permutations of $\{1,...,n\}$. In a recent paper [Random Structures Algorithms 29 (2006) 277--295] we showed that the weak law of large numbers holds for $Z_{n,k_n}$ if $k_n=o(n^{2/5})$; that is, \[\lim_{n\to\infty}\frac{Z_{n,k_n}}{EZ_{n,k_n}}=1\qquad in probability.\] The method of proof employed there used the second moment method and demonstrated that this method cannot work if the condition $k_n=o(n^{2/5})$ does not hold. It follows from re…
The Mallows measure is a probability measure on $S_n$ where the probability of a permutation $π$ is proportional to $q^{l(π)}$ with $q > 0$ being a parameter and $l(π)$ the number of inversions in $π$. We prove a weak law of large numbers for the length of the longest common subsequences of two independent permutations drawn from the Mallows measure, when $q$ is a function of $n$ and $n(1-q)$ has limit in $\mathbb{R}$ as $n \to \infty$.
The Mallows measure on the symmetric group $S_n$ is the probability measure such that each permutation has probability proportional to $q$ raised to the power of the number of inversions, where $q$ is a positive parameter and the number of inversions of $π$ is equal to the number of pairs $i<j$ such that $π_i > π_j$. We prove a weak law of large numbers for the length of the longest increasing subsequence for Mallows distributed random permutations, in the limit that $n$ tends to infinity and $q$ tends to 1 in such a way that $n(1-q)$ has a limit in $\R$.
