Random matrices acting on structured sets play a fundamental role in high-dimensional geometry, compressed sensing, and randomized algorithms. Existing results primarily focus on subgaussian models, when random matrices act as near-isometries on sets with optimal tail behavior. Nevertheless, very often in applications we deal with distributions with heavy tails that are not subgaussian but have at least exponential-type tails.
In this work, we study random matrices A whose rows (or columns) have $α$-subexponential tail distributions with $α\in (0,2]$. So subgaussian and sub-exponential models are included in as special cases. We establish concentration type inequality for $Ax$, where x belongs to the bounded subsets of $\mathbb{R}^n$, showing that their geometric distortion is governed by Talagrand's functional of the set and depends on the tail parameter $α$. Our results extend the known optimal inequalities in the subgaussian regime ($α=2$), and provide new guarantees for heavier-tailed, yet exponentially integrable, random matrices.
These findings extend the theory of random matrices beyond the subgaussian framework. Moreover, they yield near-isometric embedding results applicable to dimension reduction and allow us to make robust high-dimensional inference under non-Gaussian measurements.
We prove extensions of classical concentration inequalities for random variables which have $α$-subexponential tail decay for any $α\in (0,2]$. This includes Hanson--Wright type and convex concentration inequalities. We also provide some applications of these results. This includes uniform Hanson--Wright inequalities and concentration results for simple random tensors in the spirit of previous work by Klochkov--Zhivotovskiy and Vershynin.
We obtain large and moderate deviation estimates, as well as concentration inequalities, for a class of nonuniformly expanding maps with stretched exponential decay of correlations. In the large deviation regime, we also exhibit examples showing that the obtained upper bounds are essentially optimal.
In this paper, we consider graphon particle systems with heterogeneous mean-field type interactions and the associated finite particle approximations. Under suitable growth (resp. convexity) assumptions, we obtain uniform-in-time concentration estimates, over finite (resp. infinite) time horizon, for the Wasserstein distance between the empirical measure and its limit, extending the work of Bolley--Guillin--Villani.
Consider a family of random walks $S_n^{(a)}=X_1^{(a)}+\cdots+X_n^{(a)}$ with negative drift $\mathbf E X_1^{(a)}=-a<0$ and finite variance $\mbox{var}(X_1^{(a)})=σ^2<\infty$.Let $M^{(a)}=\max_{n\ge 0} S_n^{(a)}$ be the maximums of the random walks. The exponential asymptotics $\mathbf P(aM^{(a)}>x)\sim e^{-2x/σ^2}$, as $a\to 0$, were found by Kingman and are known as heavy traffic approximation in the queueing theory. For subexponential random variables the large deviation asymptotics for $\mathbf P(M^{(a)}>x)\sim \frac{1}{a}\overline F^I(x)$ hold for fixed $a$ as $x\to\infty$. In this paper …
New Vapnik and Chervonenkis type concentration inequalities are derived for the empirical distribution of an independent random sample. Focus is on the maximal deviation over classes of Borel sets within a low probability region. The constants are explicit, enabling numerical comparisons.
We prove higher order concentration bounds for functions on Stiefel and Grassmann manifolds equipped with the uniform distribution. This partially extends previous work for functions on the unit sphere. Technically, our results are based on logarithmic Sobolev techniques for the uniform measures on the manifolds. Applications include Hanson--Wright type inequalities for Stiefel manifolds and concentration bounds for certain distance functions between subspaces of $\mathbb{R}^n$.
In this paper, we study the asymptotic thin-shell width concentration for random vectors uniformly distributed in Orlicz balls. We provide both asymptotic upper and lower bounds on the probability of such a random vector $X_n$ being in a thin shell of radius $\sqrt{n}$ times the asymptotic value of $n^{-1/2}\left(\mathbb E\left[\| X_n\|_2^2\right]\right)^{1/2}$ (as $n\to\infty$), showing that in certain ranges our estimates are optimal. In particular, our estimates significantly improve upon the currently best known general Lee-Vempala bound when the deviation parameter $t=t_n$ goes down to ze…
This paper is devoted to uniform versions of the Hanson-Wright inequality for a random vector $X \in \mathbb{R}^n$ with independent subgaussian components. The core technique of the paper is based on the entropy method combined with truncations of both gradients of functions of interest and of the coordinates of $X$ itself. Our results recover, in particular, the classic uniform bound of Talagrand (1996) for Rademacher chaoses and the more recent uniform result of Adamczak (2015), which holds under certain rather strong assumptions on the distribution of $X$. We provide several applications of…
Generalized gamma distributions arise as limits in many settings involving random graphs, walks, trees, and branching processes. Peköz, Röllin, and Ross (2016, arXiv:1309.4183 [math.PR]) exploited characterizing distributional fixed point equations to obtain uniform error bounds for generalized gamma approximations using Stein's method. Here we show how monotone couplings arising with these fixed point equations can be used to obtain sharper tail bounds that, in many cases, outperform competing moment-based bounds and the uniform bounds obtainable with Stein's method. Applications are given to…
We prove an exponential decay concentration inequality to bound the tail probability of the difference between the log-likelihood of discrete random variables on a finite alphabet and the negative entropy. The concentration bound we derive holds uniformly over all parameter values. The new result improves the convergence rate in an earlier result of Zhao (2020), from $(K^2\log K)/n=o(1)$ to $ (\log K)^2/n=o(1)$, where $n$ is the sample size and $K$ is the size of the alphabet. We further prove that the rate $(\log K)^2/n=o(1)$ is optimal. The results are extended to misspecified log-likelihood…
We demonstrate a method for proving precise concentration inequalities in uniformly random trees on $n$ vertices, where $n\geq1$ is a fixed positive integer. The method uses a bijection between mappings $f\colon\{1,\ldots,n\}\to\{1,\ldots,n\}$ and doubly rooted trees on $n$ vertices. The main application is a concentration inequality for the number of vertices connected to an independent set in a uniformly random tree, which is then used to prove partial unimodality of its independent set sequence. So, we give probabilistic arguments for inequalities that often use combinatorial arguments.
We obtain a concentration inequality for the maximum degree of a vertex in a uniformly random dissection of a polygon. This resolves a conjecture posed by Curien and Kortchemski in 2012. Our approach is based on a bijection with dual trees and the tools of analytic combinatorics.
We present results on the concentration properties of the spectral norm $\|A_p\|$ of the adjacency matrix $A_p$ of an Erdős-Rényi random graph $G(n,p)$. First we consider the Erdős-Rényi random graph process and prove that $\|A_p\|$ is uniformly concentrated over the range $p\in [C\log n/n,1]$. The analysis is based on delocalization arguments, uniform laws of large numbers, together with the entropy method to prove concentration inequalities. As an application of our techniques we prove sharp sub-Gaussian moment inequalities for $\|A_p\|$ for all $p\in [c\log^3n/n,1]$ that improve the general…
This paper develops nonasymptotic growth and concentration bounds for a product of independent random matrices. These results sharpen and generalize recent work of Henriksen-Ward, and they are similar in spirit to the results of Ahlswede-Winter and of Tropp for a sum of independent random matrices. The argument relies on the uniform smoothness properties of the Schatten trace classes.
We consider the problem of recovering a real-valued $n$-dimensional signal from $m$ phaseless, linear measurements and analyze the amplitude-based non-smooth least squares objective. We establish local convergence of subgradient descent with optimal sample complexity based on the uniform concentration of a random, discontinuous matrix-valued operator arising from the objective's gradient dynamics. While common techniques to establish uniform concentration of random functions exploit Lipschitz continuity, we prove that the discontinuous matrix-valued operator satisfies a uniform matrix concentr…
We consider first passage percolation on certain isotropic random graphs in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We assume exponential concentration of passage times $T(x,y)$, on some scale $σ_r$ whenever $|y-x|$ is of order $r$, with $σ_r$ "growning like $r^χ$" for some $0<χ<1$. Heuristically this means transverse wandering of geodesics should be at most of order $Δ_r = (rσ_r)^{1/2}$. We show that in fact uniform versions of exponential concentration and wandering bounds hold: except with probability exponentially small in $t$, there are no $x,y$ in a natural cylinder of length $r$ and radius $KΔ_r$ for which eit…
We derive uniform concentration inequalities for continuous-time analogues of empirical processes and related stochastic integrals of scalar ergodic diffusion processes. Thereby, we lay the foundation typically required for the study of sup-norm properties of estimation procedures for a large class of diffusion processes. In the classical i.i.d. context, a key device for the statistical sup-norm analysis is provided by Talagrand-type concentration inequalities. Aiming for a parallel substitute in the diffusion framework, we present a systematic, self-contained approach to such uniform concentr…
We investigate links between the so-called Stein's density approach in dimension one and some functional and concentration inequalities. We show that measures having a finite first moment and a density with connected support satisfy a weighted Poincaré inequality with the weight being the Stein kernel, that indeed exists and is unique in this case. Furthermore, we prove weighted log-Sobolev and asymmetric Brascamp-Lieb type inequalities related to Stein kernels. We also show that existence of a uniformly bounded Stein kernel is sufficient to ensure a positive Cheeger isoperimetric constant. Th…
Central limit theorems for the log-volume of a class of random convex bodies in $\mathbb{R}^n$ are obtained in the high-dimensional regime, that is, as $n\to\infty$. In particular, the case of random simplices pinned at the origin and simplices where all vertices are generated at random is investigated. The coordinates of the generating vectors are assumed to be independent and identically distributed with subexponential tails. In addition, asymptotic normality is established also for random convex bodies (including random simplices pinned at the origin) when the spanning vectors are distribut…
