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Fluctuations of the diagonal entries of a large sample precision matrix

2022/11/01 by Nina Dörnemann, Holger Dette, Dörnemann, Nina +1
Chemistry · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Mathematics #Molecular spectroscopy and chirality #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Random Matrices and Applications #Statistics Theory (math.ST)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2211.00474

openalex publication_date 2022/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

For a given p× n data matrix Xn with i.i.d. centered entries and a population covariance matrix \bfΣ, the corresponding sample precision matrix \bfΣ-1 is defined as the inverse of the sample covariance matrix \bfΣ = (1/n) \bfΣ1/2 XnXn^\top \bfΣ1/2. We determine the joint distribution of a vector of diagonal entries of the matrix \bfΣ-1 in the situation, where pn=p< n and p/n → y ∈ [0,1) for n→∞ and \bfΣ is a diagonal matrix. Remarkably, our results cover both the case where the dimension is negligible in comparison to the sample size and the case where it is of the same magnitude. Our approach is based on a QR-decomposition of the data matrix, yielding a connection to random quadratic forms and allowing the application of a central limit theorem for martingale difference schemes. Moreover, we discuss an interesting connection to linear spectral statistics of the sample covariance matrix. More precisely, the logarithmic diagonal entry of the sample precision matrix can be interpreted as a difference of two highly dependent linear spectral statistics of \bfΣ and a submatrix of \bfΣ. This difference of spectral statistics fluctuates on a much smaller scale than each single statistic.

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