Consider a random sum $η_1 v_1 + ... + η_n v_n$, where $η_1,...,η_n$ are i.i.d. random signs and $v_1,...,v_n$ are integers. The Littlewood-Offord problem asks to maximize concentration probabilities such as $¶(η_1 v_1 + ... + η_n v_n = 0)$ subject to various hypotheses on the $v_1,...,v_n$. In this paper we develop an \emph{inverse} Littlewood-Offord theorem (somewhat in the spirit of Freiman's inverse sumset theorem), which starts with the hypothesis that a concentration probability is large, and concludes that almost all of the $v_1,...,v_n$ are efficiently contained in an arithmetic progression. As an application we give some new bounds on the distribution of the least singular value of a random Bernoulli matrix, which in turn gives upper tail estimates on the condition number.
We prove several Littlewood-Offord type inequalities for arbitrary groups. In groups having elements of finite order the worst case scenario is provided by the simple random walk on a certain cyclic subgroup. The inequalities we obtain are optimal if the underlying group contains an element of certain order. It turns out that for torsion-free groups Erdős's bound still holds. Our results strengthen and generalize some very recent results by Tiep and Vu.
Consider the sum $X(ξ)=\sum_{i=1}^n a_iξ_i$, where $a=(a_i)_{i=1}^n$ is a sequence of non-zero reals and $ξ=(ξ_i)_{i=1}^n$ is a sequence of i.i.d. Rademacher random variables (that is, $\Pr[ξ_i=1]=\Pr[ξ_i=-1]=1/2$). The classical Littlewood-Offord problem asks for the best possible upper bound on the concentration probabilities $\Pr[X=x]$. In this paper we study a resilience version of the Littlewood-Offord problem: how many of the $ξ_i$ is an adversary typically allowed to change without being able to force concentration on a particular value? We solve this problem asymptotically, and present…
Let $M_n$ denote a random symmetric $n$ by $n$ matrix, whose upper diagonal entries are iid Bernoulli random variables (which take value -1 and 1 with probability 1/2). Improving the earlier result by Costello, Tao and Vu, we show that $M_n$ is non-singular with probability $1-O(n^{-C})$ for any positive constant $C$. The proof uses an inverse Littlewood-Offord result for quadratic forms, which is of interest of its own.
Consider a sum $S_n=v_i\varepsilon_1+\cdots+v_n\varepsilon_{n}$, where $(v_i)^{n}_{i=1}$ are non-zero vectors in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ and $(\varepsilon_i)^{n}_{i=1}$ are independent Rademacher random variables (i.e., $~{\mathbb{P}(\varepsilon_{i}=\pm 1)=1/2}$). The classical Littlewood-Offord problem asks for the best possible upper bound for $~{\sup_{x}\mathbb{P}(S_n = x)}$. In this paper we consider a non-uniform version of this problem. Namely, we obtain the optimal bound for $\mathbb{P}(S_n = x)$ in terms of the length of the vector $x\in \mathbb{R}^d$.
The classical Erdős-Littlewood-Offord problem concerns the random variable $X = a_1 ξ_1 + \dots + a_n ξ_n$, where $a_i \in \mathbb{R} \setminus \{0\}$ are fixed and $ξ_i \sim \text{Ber}(1/2)$ are independent. The Erdős-Littlewood-Offord theorem states that the maximum possible concentration probability $\max_{x \in \mathbb{R}} \Pr(X = x)$ is $\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor} / 2^n$, achieved when the $a_i$ are all $1$. As proposed by Fox, Kwan, and Sauermann, we investigate the general case where $ξ_i \sim \text{Ber}(p)$ instead. Using purely combinatorial techniques, we show that the exact maxim…
In 1943, Littlewood and Offord proved the first anti-concentration result for sums of independent random variables. Their result has since then been strengthened and generalized by generations of researchers, with applications in several areas of mathematics. In this paper, we present the first non-abelian analogue of Littlewood-Offord result, a sharp anti-concentration inequality for products of independent random variables.
The paper deals with studying a connection of the Littlewood--Offord problem with estimating the concentration functions of some symmetric infinitely divisible distributions.
Let $ε_1, \dotsc, ε_n$ be i.i.d. Rademacher random variables taking values $\pm 1$ with probability $1/2$ each. Given an integer vector $\boldsymbol{a} = (a_1, \dotsc, a_n)$, its concentration probability is the quantity $ρ(\boldsymbol{a}):=\sup_{x\in \mathbb{Z}}\Pr(ε_1 a_1+\dots+ε_n a_n = x)$. The Littlewood-Offord problem asks for bounds on $ρ(\boldsymbol{a})$ under various hypotheses on $\boldsymbol{a}$, whereas the inverse Littlewood-Offord problem, posed by Tao and Vu, asks for a characterization of all vectors $\boldsymbol{a}$ for which $ρ(\boldsymbol{a})$ is large. In this paper, we stu…
Consider a quadratic polynomial $f\left(ξ_{1},\dots,ξ_{n}\right)$ of independent Bernoulli random variables. What can be said about the concentration of $f$ on any single value? This generalises the classical Littlewood--Offord problem, which asks the same question for linear polynomials. As in the linear case, it is known that the point probabilities of $f$ can be as large as about $1/\sqrt{n}$, but still poorly understood is the "inverse" question of characterising the algebraic and arithmetic features $f$ must have if it has point probabilities comparable to this bound. In this paper we pro…
If f(x_1, x_2, ..., x_n) is a polynomial dependent on a large number of independent Bernoulli random variables, what can be said about the maximum concentration of f on any single value? For linear polynomials, this reduces to one version of the classical Littlewood-Offord problem: Given nonzero constants a_1 through a_n, what is the maximum number of sums of the form +/- a_1 +/- a_2 +/-... +/- a_n which take on any single value? Here we consider the case where f is either a bilinear form or a quadratic form. For the bilinear case, we show that the only forms having concentration significantly…
The celebrated Littlewood-Offord problem asks for an upper bound on the probability that the random variable $ε_1 v_1 + \cdots + ε_n v_n$ lies in the Euclidean unit ball, where $ε_1, \ldots, ε_n \in \{-1, 1\}$ are independent Rademacher random variables and $v_1, \ldots, v_n \in \mathbb{R}^d$ are fixed vectors of at least unit length.We extend many known results to the case that the $ε_i$ are obtained from a Markov chain, including the general bounds first shown by Erdős in the scalar case and Kleitman in the vector case, and also under the restriction that the $v_i$ are distinct integers due …
The paper deals with studying a connection of the Littlewood--Offord problem with estimating the concentration functions of some symmetric infinitely divisible distributions. Some multivariate generalizations of results of Arak (1980) are given. They show a connection of the concentration function of the sum with the arithmetic structure of supports of distributions of independent random vectors for arbitrary distributions of summands.
Let $X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be independent identically distributed random vectors in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We consider upper bounds on $\max_x \mathbb{P}(a_1X_1+\cdots+a_nX_n=x)$ under various restrictions on $X_i$ and the weights $a_i$. When $\mathbb{P}(X_i=\pm 1) = \frac {1} {2}$, this corresponds to the classical Littlewood-Offord problem. We prove that in general for identically distributed random vectors and even values of $n$ the optimal choice for $(a_i)$ is $a_i=1$ for $i\leq \frac{n}{2}$ and $a_i=-1$ for $i > \frac {n} 2$, regardless of the distribution of $X_1$. Applying these results for Bernoul…
Let $X,X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be independent identically distributed random variables. In this paper we study the behavior of concentration functions of weighted sums $\sum_{k=1}^{n}X_ka_k $ with respect to the arithmetic structure of coefficients $a_k$ in the context of the Littlewood--Offord problem. In recent papers of Eliseeva, Götze and Zaitsev, we discussed the relations between the inverse principles stated by Nguyen, Tao and Vu and similar principles formulated by Arak in his papers from the 1980's. In this paper, we will derive some more general and more precise consequences of Arak's inequa…
The paper deals with studying a connection of the Littlewood--Offord problem with estimating the concentration functions of some symmetric infinitely divisible distributions. It is shown that the values at zero of the concentration functions of weighted sums of i.i.d. random variables may be estimated by the values at zero of the concentration functions of symmetric infinitely divisible distributions with the Lévy spectral measures which are multiples of the sum of delta-measures at $\pm$weights involved in constructing the weighted sums.
Let $X,X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be independent identically distributed random variables. In this paper we study the behavior of concentration functions of weighted sums $\sum_{k=1}^{n}a_k X_k$ with respect to the arithmetic structure of coefficients $a_k$ in the context of the Littlewood--Offord problem. Concentration results of this type received renewed interest in connection with distributions of singular values of random matrices. Recently, Tao and Vu proposed an Inverse Principle in the Littlewood-Offord problem. We discuss the relations between the Inverse Principle of Tao and Vu as well as that …
Let $X,X_1,\ldots,X_n$ be independent identically distributed random variables. In this paper we study the behavior of concentration functions of weighted sums $\sum_{k=1}^{n} X_k a_k$ with respect to the arithmetic structure of coefficients~$a_k$ in the context of the Littlewood--Offord problem. Concentration results of this type received renewed interest in connection with distributions of singular values of random matrices. Recently, Tao and Vu proposed an Inverse Principle in the Littlewood--Offord problem. We discuss the relations between the Inverse Principle of Tao and Vu as well as tha…
The famous \emph{circular law} asserts that if $M_n$ is an $n \times n$ matrix with iid complex entries of mean zero and unit variance, then the empirical spectral distribution (ESD) of the normalized matrix $\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}} M_n$ converges almost surely to the uniform distribution on the unit disk $\{z \in \C: |z| \leq 1 \}$. After a long sequence of partial results that verified this law under additional assumptions on the distribution of the entries, the full circular law was recently established in \cite{TVcir2}. In this survey we describe some of the key ingredients used in the establis…
Given a star-shaped domain $K\subseteq \mathbb R^d$, $n$ vectors $v_1,\dots,v_n \in \mathbb R^d$, a number $R>0$, and i.i.d. random variables $η_1,\dots,η_n$, we study the geometric and arithmetic structure of the set of vectors $V = \{v_1,\dots,v_n\}$ under the assumption that the small ball probability \[\sup_{x\in \mathbb R^d}~\mathbb P\Bigg(\sum_{j=1}^nη_jv_j\in x+RK\Bigg)\] does not decay too fast as $n\to \infty$. This generalises the case where $K$ is the Euclidean ball, which was previously studied by Nguyen-Vu and Tao-Vu.
We prove two basic conjectures on the distribution of the smallest singular value of random n times n matrices with independent entries. Under minimal moment assumptions, we show that the smallest singular value is of order n^{-1/2}, which is optimal for Gaussian matrices. Moreover, we give a optimal estimate on the tail probability. This comes as a consequence of a new and essentially sharp estimate in the Littlewood-Offord problem: for i.i.d. random variables X_k and real numbers a_k, determine the probability P that the sum of a_k X_k lies near some number v. For arbitrary coefficients a_k …
Let $X,X_1,...,X_n$ be independent identically distributed random variables. In this paper we study the behavior of the concentration functions of the weighted sums $\sum\limits_{k=1}^{n}a_k X_k$ with respect to the arithmetic structure of coefficients $a_k$. Such concentration results recently became important in connection with investigations about singular values of random matrices. In this paper we formulate and prove some refinements of a result of Vershynin (R. Vershynin, Invertibility of symmetric random matrices, arXiv:1102.0300. (2011). Published in Random Structures and Algorithms, v…
We provide a characterization for anti-concentration of inhomogeneous random walks in non-abelian groups. In application we extend the classical bounds by Erdos-Littlewood-Offord and Sarkozy-Szemeredi to non-abelian settings.
We give a structural description of the finite subsets $A$ of an arbitrary group $G$ which obey the polynomial growth condition $|A^n| \leq n^d |A|$ for some bounded $d$ and sufficiently large $n$, showing that such sets are controlled by (a bounded number of translates of) a coset nilprogression in a certain precise sense. This description recovers some previous results of Breuillard-Green-Tao and Breuillard-Tointon concerning sets of polynomial growth; we are also able to describe the subsequent growth of $|A^m|$ fairly explicitly for $m \geq n$, at least when $A$ is a symmetric neighbourhoo…
Conditional on the extended Riemann hypothesis, we show that with high probability, the characteristic polynomial of a random symmetric $\{\pm 1\}$-matrix is irreducible. This addresses a question raised by Eberhard in recent work. The main innovation in our work is establishing sharp estimates regarding the rank distribution of symmetric random $\{\pm 1\}$-matrices over $\mathbb{F}_p$ for primes $2 < p \leq \exp(O(n^{1/4}))$. Previously, such estimates were available only for $p = o(n^{1/8})$. At the heart of our proof is a way to combine multiple inverse Littlewood--Offord-type results to co…
A well-known conjecture states that a random symmetric $n \times n$ matrix with entries in $\{-1,1\}$ is singular with probability $Θ\big( n^2 2^{-n} \big)$. In this paper we prove that the probability of this event is at most $\exp\big( - Ω( \sqrt{n} ) \big)$, improving the best known bound of $\exp\big( - Ω( n^{1/4} \sqrt{\log n} ) \big)$, which was obtained recently by Ferber and Jain. The main new ingredient is an inverse Littlewood-Offord theorem in $\mathbb{Z}_p^n$ that applies under very mild conditions, whose statement is inspired by the method of hypergraph containers.
Let $N_n$ be an $n\times n$ complex random matrix, each of whose entries is an independent copy of a centered complex random variable $z$ with finite non-zero variance $σ^{2}$. The strong circular law, proved by Tao and Vu, states that almost surely, as $n\to \infty$, the empirical spectral distribution of $N_n/(σ\sqrt{n})$ converges to the uniform distribution on the unit disc in $\mathbb{C}$. A crucial ingredient in the proof of Tao and Vu, which uses deep ideas from additive combinatorics, is controlling the lower tail of the least singular value of the random matrix $xI - N_{n}/(σ\sqrt{n})…
Let $ξ$ be a real random variable with mean zero and variance one and $A={a_1,...,a_n}$ be a multi-set in $\R^d$. The random sum $$S_A := a_1 ξ_1 + ... + a_n ξ_n $$ where $ξ_i$ are iid copies of $ξ$ is of fundamental importance in probability and its applications. We discuss the small ball problem, the aim of which is to estimate the maximum probability that $S_A$ belongs to a ball with given small radius, following the discovery made by Littlewood-Offord and Erdos almost 70 years ago. We will mainly focus on recent developments that characterize the structure of those sets $A$ where the small…
Let $Q_n$ denote a random symmetric $n$ by $n$ matrix, whose upper diagonal entries are i.i.d. Bernoulli random variables (which take values 0 and 1 with probability 1/2). We prove that $Q_n$ is non-singular with probability $1-O(n^{-1/8+δ})$ for any fixed $δ> 0$. The proof uses a quadratic version of Littlewood-Offord type results concerning the concentration functions of random variables and can be extended for more general models of random matrices.
This paper provides a connection between the concentration of a random variable and the distribution of the roots of its probability generating function. Let $X$ be a random variable taking values in $\{0,\ldots,n\}$ with $\mathbb{P}(X = 0)\mathbb{P}(X = n) > 0$ and with probability generating function $f_X$. We show that if all of the zeros $ζ$ of $f_X$ satisfy $|\arg(ζ)| \geq δ$ and $R^{-1} \leq |ζ| \leq R$ then \[ \operatorname{Var}(X) \geq c R^{-2π/δ}n, \] where $c > 0$ is a absolute constant. We show that this result is sharp, up to the factor $2$ in the exponent of $R$. As a consequence,…
We prove that the boundary of the Hall-Littlewood $t$-deformation of the Gelfand-Tsetlin graph is parametrized by infinite integer signatures, extending results of Gorin and Cuenca on boundaries of related deformed Gelfand-Tsetlin graphs. In the special case when $1/t$ is a prime $p$ we use this to recover results of Bufetov-Qiu and Assiotis on infinite $p$-adic random matrices, placing them in the general context of branching graphs derived from symmetric functions. Our methods rely on explicit formulas for certain skew Hall-Littlewood polynomials. As a separate corollary to these, we obtain …
It is conjectured by Godsil that the relative number of controllable graphs compared to the total number of simple graphs on n vertices approaches one as n tends to infinity. We prove that this conjecture is true. More generally, our methods show that the linear system formed from the pair (W, b) is controllable for a large class of Wigner random matrices W and deterministic vectors b. The proof relies on recent advances in Littlewood-Offord theory developed by Rudelson and Vershynin.
It is generally hard to count, or even estimate, how many integer points lie in a polytope P. Barvinok and Hartigan have approached the problem by way of information theory, showing how to efficiently compute a random vector which samples the integer points of P with (computable) constant mass, but which may also land outside P. Thus, to count the integer points of P, it suffices to determine the frequency with which the random vector falls in P. We prove a collection of efficiently computable upper bounds on this frequency. We also show that if P is suitably presented by n linear inequalities…
Let $ζ= ξ+ iξ'$ where $ξ, ξ'$ are iid copies of a mean zero, variance one, subgaussian random variable. Let $N_n$ be a $n \times n$ random matrix with entries that are iid copies of $ζ$. We prove that there exists a $c \in (0,1)$ such that the probability that $N_n$ has any real eigenvalues is less than $c^n$ where $c$ only depends on the subgaussian moment of $ξ$. The bound is optimal up to the value of the constant $c$. The principal component of the proof is an optimal tail bound on the least singular value of matrices of the form $M_n := M + N_n$ where $M$ is a deterministic complex matrix…
Let ${\mathcal D}_{n,d}$ be the set of all $d$-regular directed graphs on $n$ vertices. Let $G$ be a graph chosen uniformly at random from ${\mathcal D}_{n,d}$ and $M$ be its adjacency matrix. We show that $M$ is invertible with probability at least $1-C\ln^{3} d/\sqrt{d}$ for $C\leq d\leq cn/\ln^2 n$, where $c, C$ are positive absolute constants. To this end, we establish a few properties of $d$-regular directed graphs. One of them, a Littlewood-Offord type anti-concentration property, is of independent interest. Let $J$ be a subset of vertices of $G$ with $|J|\approx n/d$. Let $δ_i$ be the i…
The number of real roots has been a central subject in the theory of random polynomials and random functions since the fundamental papers of Littlewood-Offord and Kac in the 1940s. The main task here is to determine the limiting distribution of this random variable. In 1974, Maslova famously proved a central limit theorem (CLT) for the number of real roots of Kac polynomials. It has remained the only limiting theorem available for the number of real roots for more than four decades. In this paper, using a new approach, we derive a general CLT for the number of real roots of a large class of ra…
We show that singular numbers (also known as invariant factors or Smith normal forms) of products and corners of random matrices over $\mathbb{Q}_p$ are governed by the Hall-Littlewood polynomials, in a structurally identical manner to the classical relations between singular values of complex random matrices and Heckman-Opdam hypergeometric functions. This implies that the singular numbers of a product of corners of Haar-distributed elements of $\text{GL}_N(\mathbb{Z}_p)$ form a discrete-time Markov chain distributed as a Hall-Littlewood process, with the number of matrices in the product pla…
We prove anti-concentration results for polynomials of independent random variables with arbitrary degree. Our results extend the classical Littlewood-Offord result for linear polynomials, and improve several earlier estimates. We discuss applications in two different areas. In complexity theory, we prove near optimal lower bounds for computing the Parity, addressing a challenge in complexity theory posed by Razborov and Viola, and also address a problem concerning OR functions. In random graph theory, we derive a general anti-concentration result on the number of copies of a fixed graph in a …
For a fixed quadratic polynomial $\mathfrak{p}$ in $n$ non-commuting variables, and $n$ independent $N\times N$ complex Ginibre matrices $X_1^N,\dots, X_n^N$, we establish the convergence of the empirical spectral distribution of $P^N =\mathfrak{p}(X_1^N,\dots, X_n^N)$ to the Brown measure of $\mathfrak{p}$ evaluated at $n$ freely independent circular elements $c_1,\dots, c_n$ in a non-commutative probability space. The main step of the proof is to obtain quantitative control on the pseudospectrum of $P^N$. Via the well-known linearization trick this hinges on anti-concentration properties for…
We prove a lower bound expansion on the probability that a random $\pm 1$ matrix is singular, and conjecture that such expansions govern the actual probability of singularity. These expansions are based on naming the most likely, second most likely, and so on, ways that a Bernoulli matrix can be singular; the most likely way is to have a null vector of the form $e_i \pm e_j$, which corresponds to the integer partition 11, with two parts of size 1. The second most likely way is to have a null vector of the form $e_i \pm e_j \pm e_k \pm e_\ell$, which corresponds to the partition 1111. The fifth…
Neretin constructed an analogue of the Hua measures on the infinite $p$-adic matrices $Mat\left(\mathbb{N},\mathbb{Q}_p\right)$. Bufetov and Qiu classified the ergodic measures on $Mat\left(\mathbb{N},\mathbb{Q}_p\right)$ that are invariant under the natural action of $GL(\infty,\mathbb{Z}_p)\times GL(\infty,\mathbb{Z}_p)$. In this paper we solve the problem of ergodic decomposition for the $p$-adic Hua measures introduced by Neretin. We prove that the probability measure governing the ergodic decomposition has an explicit expression which identifies it with a Hall-Littlewood measure on partit…
Asymptotic representation theory of general linear groups GL(n,q) over a finite field leads to studying probability measures ρon the group U of all infinite uni-uppertriangular matrices over F_q, with the condition that ρis invariant under conjugations by arbitrary infinite matrices. Such probability measures form an infinite-dimensional simplex, and the description of its extreme points (in other words, ergodic measures ρ) was conjectured by Kerov in connection with nonnegative specializations of Hall-Littlewood symmetric functions. Vershik and Kerov also conjectured the following Law of Larg…
We show that for an $n\times n$ random matrix $A$ with independent uniformly anti-concentrated entries, such that $\mathbb{E} ||A||^2_{HS}\leq K n^2$, the smallest singular value $σ_n(A)$ of $A$ satisfies $$ P\left( σ_n(A)\leq \frac{\varepsilon}{\sqrt{n}} \right) \leq C\varepsilon+2e^{-cn},\quad \varepsilon \ge 0. $$ This extends earlier results of Rudelson and Vershynin, and Rebrova and Tikhomirov by removing the assumption of mean zero and identical distribution of the entries across the matrix, as well as the recent result of Livshyts, where the matrix was required to have i.i.d. rows. Our …
We show that the variance of centred linear statistics of eigenvalues of GUE matrices remains bounded for large $n$ for some classes of test functions less regular than Lipschitz functions. This observation is suggested by the limiting form of the variance (which has previously been computed explicitly), but it does not seem to appear in the literature. We combine this fact with comparison techniques following Tao-Vu and Erdös, Yau, et al. and a Littlewood-Paley type decomposition to extend the central limit theorem for linear eigenvalue statistics to functions in the Hölder class $C^{1/2+ε}$ …
We study the lower tail behavior of the least singular value of an $n\times n$ random matrix $M_n := M+N_n$, where $M$ is a fixed complex matrix with operator norm at most $\exp(n^{c})$ and $N_n$ is a random matrix, each of whose entries is an independent copy of a complex random variable with mean $0$ and variance $1$. Motivated by applications, our focus is on obtaining bounds which hold with extremely high probability, rather than on the least singular value of a typical such matrix. This setting has previously been considered in a series of influential works by Tao and Vu, most notably in …
The Littlewood--Richardson process is a discrete random point process arising from the isotypic decomposition of tensor products of irreducible representations of $\operatorname{GL}_N(\mathbb{C})$. Biane--Perelomov--Popov matrices are quantum random matrices obtained as the geometric quantization of random Hermitian matrices with deterministic eigenvalues and uniformly random eigenvectors. As first observed by Biane, correlation functions of certain global observables of the LR process coincide with correlation functions of linear statistics of sums of classically independent BPP matrices, the…
