The probability that the sum of independent, centered, identically distributed, heavy-tailed random variables achieves a very large value is asymptotically equal to the probability that there exists a single summand equalling that value. We quantify the error in this approximation. We furthermore characterise of the law of the individual summands, conditioned on the sum being large.
It is well-known that large deviations of random walks driven by independent and identically distributed heavy-tailed random variables are governed by the so-called principle of one large jump. We note that further subtleties hold for such random walks in the large deviation scale which we call hidden large deviation. We apply this idea in the context of queueing processes with heavy-tailed service times and study approximations of severe congestion times for (buffered) queues. We conclude with simulated examples to verify our results.
It is known that large deviations of sums of subexponential random variables are most likely realised by deviations of a single random variable. In this article we give a detailed picture of how subexponential random variables are distributed when a large deviation of their sum is observed.
We prove large deviation results for sums of heavy-tailed random elements in rather general convex cones being semigroups equipped with a rescaling operation by positive real numbers. In difference to previous results for the cone of convex sets, our technique does not use the embedding of cones in linear spaces. Examples include the cone of convex sets with the Minkowski addition, positive half-line with maximum operation and the family of square integrable functions with arithmetic addition and argument rescaling.
A large deviations principle is established for the joint law of the empirical measure and the flow measure of a renewal Markov process on a finite graph. We do not assume any bound on the arrival times, allowing heavy tailed distributions. In particular, the rate functional is in general degenerate (it has a nontrivial set of zeros) and not strictly convex. These features show a behavior highly different from what one may guess with a heuristic Donsker-Varadhan analysis of the problem.
This paper studies the effect of truncation on the large deviations behavior of the partial sum of a triangular array coming from a truncated power law model. Each row of the triangular array consists of i.i.d. random vectors, whose distribution matches a power law on a ball of radius going to infinity, and outside that it has a light-tailed modification. The random vectors are assumed to be R^d-valued. It turns out that there are two regimes depending on the growth rate of the truncating threshold, so that in one regime, much of the heavy tailedness is retained, while in the other regime, the…
We study large deviation probabilities for a sum of dependent random variables from a heavy-tailed factor model, assuming that the components are regularly varying. We identify conditions where both the factor and the idiosyncratic terms contribute to the behaviour of the tail-probability of the sum. A simple conditional Monte Carlo algorithm is also provided together with a comparison between the simulations and the large deviation approximation. We also study large deviation probabilities for stochastic processes with factor structure. The processes involved are assumed to be Levy processes …
This paper investigates the decay rate of the probability that the row sum of a triangular array of truncated heavy tailed random variables is larger than an integer (k) times the truncating threshold, as both - the number of summands and the threshold go to infinity. The method of attack for this problem is significantly different from the one where k is not an integer, and requires much sharper estimates.
Modern risk modelling approaches deal with vectors of multiple components. The components could be, for example, returns of financial instruments or losses within an insurance portfolio concerning different lines of business. One of the main problems is to decide if there is any type of dependence between the components of the vector and, if so, what type of dependence structure should be used for accurate modelling. We study a class of heavy-tailed multivariate random vectors under a non-parametric shape constraint on the tail decay rate. This class contains, for instance, elliptical distribu…
We consider the model of hashing with linear probing and we establish the moderate and large deviations for the total displacement in sparse tables. In this context, Weibull-like-tailed random variables appear. Deviations for sums of such heavy-tailed random variables are studied in \cite{Nagaev69-1,Nagaev69-2}. Here we adapt the proofs therein to deal with conditioned sums of such variables and solve the open question in \cite{TFC12}. By the way, we establish the deviations of the total displacement in full tables, which can be derived from the deviations of empirical processes of i.i.d.\ ran…
We prove that the largest and smallest root in modulus of random Kac polynomials have a non-universal behavior. They do not converge towards the edge of the support of the limiting distribution of the zeros. This non-universality is surprising as the large deviation principle for the empirical measure is universal. This is in sharp contrast with random matrix theory where the large deviation principle is non-universal but the fluctuations of the largest eigenvalue are universal. We show that the modulus of the largest zero is heavy tailed, with a number of finite moments bounded from above by …
We study deviation of U-statistics when samples have heavy-tailed distribution so the kernel of the U-statistic does not have bounded exponential moments at any positive point. We obtain an exponential upper bound for the tail of the U-statistics which clearly denotes two regions of tail decay, the first is a Gaussian decay and the second behaves like the tail of the kernel. For several common U-statistics, we also show the upper bound has the right rate of decay as well as sharp constants by obtaining rough logarithmic limits which in turn can be used to develop LDP for U-statistics. In spite…
We consider the FCFS G/G/n queue in the Halfin-Whitt regime, in the presence of heavy-tailed distributions (i.e. infinite variance). We prove that under minimal assumptions, i.e. only that processing times have finite 1 + epsilon moment and inter-arrival times have finite second moment, the sequence of stationary queue length distributions, normalized by $n^{\frac{1}{2}}$, is tight. All previous tightness results for the stationary queue length required that processing times have finite 2 + epsilon moment. Furthermore, we develop simple and explicit bounds on the stationary queue length in tha…
We extend classical results by A. V. Nagaev [Izv. Akad. Nauk UzSSR Ser. Fiz.--Mat. Nauk 6 (1969) 17--22, Theory Probab. Appl. 14 (1969) 51--64, 193--208] on large deviations for sums of i.i.d. regularly varying random variables to partial sum processes of i.i.d. regularly varying vectors. The results are stated in terms of a heavy-tailed large deviation principle on the space of càdlàg functions. We illustrate how these results can be applied to functionals of the partial sum process, including ruin probabilities for multivariate random walks and long strange segments. These results make preci…
We consider a multivariate heavy-tailed stochastic volatility model and analyze the large-sample behavior of its sample covariance matrix. We study the limiting behavior of its entries in the infinite-variance case and derive results for the ordered eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors. Essentially, we consider two different cases where the tail behavior either stems from the i.i.d. innovations of the process or from its volatility sequence. In both cases, we make use of a large deviations technique for regularly varying time series to derive multivariate $α$-stable limit distributions o…
We investigate the probability that an insurance portfolio gets ruined within a finite time period under the assumption that the r largest claims are (partly) reinsured. We show that for regularly varying claim sizes the probability of ruin after reinsurance is also regularly varying in terms of the initial capital, and derive an explicit asymptotic expression for the latter. We establish this result by leveraging recent developments on sample-path large deviations for heavy tails. Our results allow, on the asymptotic level, for an explicit comparison between two well-known large-claim reinsur…
We obtain concentration and large deviation for the sums of independent and identically distributed random variables with heavy-tailed distributions. Our concentration results are concerned with random variables whose distributions satisfy $\mathbb{P}(X>t) \leq {\rm e}^{- I(t)}$, where $I: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ is an increasing function and $I(t)/t \rightarrow α\in [0, \infty)$ as $t \rightarrow \infty$. Our main theorem can not only recover some of the existing results, such as the concentration of the sum of subWeibull random variables, but it can also produce new results for th…
We study sample-path large deviations for Lévy processes and random walks with heavy-tailed jump-size distributions that are of Weibull type. Our main results include an extended form of an LDP (large deviations principle) in the $J_1$ topology, and a full LDP in the $M_1'$ topology. The rate function can be represented as the solution to a quasi-variational problem. The sharpness and applicability of these results are illustrated by a counterexample proving the nonexistence of a full LDP in the $J_1$ topology, and by an application to a first passage problem.
Large Deviation Upper Bounds and Improved MSE Rates of Nonlinear SGD: Heavy-tailed Noise and Power of Symmetry
Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学）；Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad（诺维萨德大学技术科学学院）；Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad（诺维萨德大学理学院）
In this paper we study the asymptotic decay of finite time ruin probabilities for an insurance company that faces heavy-tailed claims, uses predictable investment strategies and makes investments in risky assets whose prices evolve according to quite general semimartingales. We show that the ruin problem corresponds to determining hitting probabilities for the solution to a randomly perturbed stochastic integral equation. We derive a large deviation result for the hitting probabilities that holds uniformly over a family of semimartingales and show that this result gives the asymptotic decay of…
We study asymptotic properties of spatially non-homogeneous random walks with non-integrable increments, including transience, almost-sure bounds, and existence and non-existence of moments for first-passage and last-exit times. In our proofs we also make use of estimates for hitting probabilities and large deviations bounds. Our results are more general than existing results in the literature, which consider only the case of sums of independent (typically, identically distributed) random variables. We do not assume the Markov property. Existing results that we generalize include a circle of i…
We study the large-time asymptotic of renewal-reward processes with a heavy-tailed waiting time distribution. It is known that the heavy tail of the distribution produces an extremely slow dynamics, resulting in a singular large deviation function. When the singularity takes place, the bottom of the large deviation function is flattened, manifesting anomalous fluctuations of the renewal-reward processes. In this article, we aim to study how these singularities emerge as the time increases. Using a classical result on the sum of random variables with regularly varying tail, we develop an expans…
In this paper we address the problem of rare-event simulation for heavy-tailed Lévy processes with infinite activities. We propose a strongly efficient importance sampling algorithm that builds upon the sample path large deviations for heavy-tailed Lévy processes, stick-breaking approximation of extrema of Lévy processes, and the randomized debiasing Monte Carlo scheme. The proposed importance sampling algorithm can be applied to a broad class of Lévy processes and exhibits significant improvements in efficiency when compared to crude Monte-Carlo method in our numerical experiments.
In this paper we obtain Berry-Esseén bounds on partial sums of functionals of heavy-tailed moving averages, including the linear fractional stable noise, stable fractional ARIMA processes and stable Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Our rates are obtained for the Wasserstein and Kolmogorov distances, and depend strongly on the interplay between the memory of the process, which is controlled by a parameter $α$, and its tail-index, which is controlled by a parameter $β$. In fact, we obtain the classical $\sqrt{1/ n}$ rate of convergence when the tails are not too heavy and the memory is not too stro…
Classical Edgeworth expansions provide asymptotic correction terms to the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) up to an order that depends on the number of moments available. In this paper, we provide subsequent correction terms beyond those given by a standard Edgeworth expansion in the general case of regularly varying distributions with diverging moments (beyond the second). The subsequent terms can be expressed in a simple closed form in terms of certain special functions (Dawson's integral and parabolic cylinder functions), and there are qualitative differences depending on whether the number of m…
A unified treatment for the existence of free energy in several random energy models is presented. If the sequence of distributions associated with the particle systems obeys a large deviation principle, then the free energy exists almost surely. This includes all the known cases as well as some heavy-tailed distributions.
Let $p>2$, $B\geq 1$, $N\geq n$ and let $X$ be a centered $n$-dimensional random vector with the identity covariance matrix such that $\sup\limits_{a\in S^{n-1}}{\mathrm E}|\langle X,a\rangle|^p\leq B$. Further, let $X_1,X_2,\dots,X_N$ be independent copies of $X$, and $Σ_N:=\frac{1}{N}\sum_{i=1}^N X_i {X_i}^T$ be the sample covariance matrix. We prove that $$K^{-1}\|Σ_N-I_n\|_{2\to 2}\leq\frac{1}{N}\max\limits_{i\leq N}\|X_i\|^2 +\Bigl(\frac{n}{N}\Bigr)^{1-2/p}\log^4\frac{N}{n}+\Bigl(\frac{n}{N}\Bigr)^{1-2/\min(p,4)}$$ with probability at least $1-\frac{1}{n}$, where $K>0$ depends only on $B$…
We obtain asymptotic bounds for the tail distribution of steady-state waiting time in a two server queue where each server processes incoming jobs at a rate equal to the rate of their arrivals (that is, the half-loaded regime). The job sizes are taken to be regularly varying. When the incoming jobs have finite variance, there are basically two types of effects that dominate the tail asymptotics. While the quantitative distinction between these two manifests itself only in the slowly varying components, the two effects arise from qualitatively very different phenomena (arrival of one extremely …
A telegraph process with an elastic barrier at the origin was studied in [5]; in particular the number of visits of the origin before the absorption is a geometric distributed random variable M. Some asymptotic results (large and moderate deviations) for that model were obtained in [17]. In this paper we study large and moderate deviations for a generalized model where M is a light-tailed distributed random variable.
We propose a class of strongly efficient rare event simulation estimators for random walks and compound Poisson processes with a regularly varying increment/jump-size distribution in a general large deviations regime. Our estimator is based on an importance sampling strategy that hinges on the heavy-tailed sample path large deviations result recently established in Rhee, Blanchet, and Zwart (2016). The new estimators are straightforward to implement and can be used to systematically evaluate the probability of a wide range of rare events with bounded relative error. They are "universal" in the…
We propose a novel complex-analytic method for sums of i.i.d. random variables that are heavy-tailed and integer-valued. The method combines singularity analysis, Lindelöf integrals, and bivariate saddle points. As an application, we prove three theorems on precise large and moderate deviations which provide a local variant of a result by S. V. Nagaev (1973). The theorems generalize five theorems by A. V. Nagaev (1968) on stretched exponential laws $p(k) = c\exp( -k^α)$ and apply to logarithmic hazard functions $c\exp( - (\log k)^β)$, $β>2$; they cover the big jump domain as well as the small …
This work is devoted to a vast extension of Sanov's theorem, in Laplace principle form, based on alternatives to the classical convex dual pair of relative entropy and cumulant generating functional. The abstract results give rise to a number of probabilistic limit theorems and asymptotics. For instance, widely applicable non-exponential large deviation upper bounds are derived for empirical distributions and averages of i.i.d. samples under minimal integrability assumptions, notably accommodating heavy-tailed distributions. Other interesting manifestations of the abstract results include new …
