A note on sums of independent random variables

We present an analytic method for computing the moments of a sum of independent and identically distributed random variables. The limiting behavior of these sums is very important to statistical theory, and the moment expressions that we derive allow for it to be studied relatively easily. We show this by presenting a new proof of the central limit theorem and several other convergence results.

We present two-sided estimates of moments and tails of polynomial chaoses of order at most three generated by independent symmetric random variables with log-concave tails as well as for chaoses of arbitrary order generated by independent symmetric exponential variables. The estimates involve only deterministic quantities and are optimal up to constants depending only on the order of the chaos variable.

We present order of magnitude estimates for the quantiles of non-negative linear combinations of non-negative random variables, as well as deviation inequalities for general linear combinations of independent random variables, under the assumption that all random variables satisfy the same power-type tail bound on $\mathbb{P}\{\left\vert X_i\right\vert>t\}$ of the form $t^{-q}$, $t^{-q/2}$ or $t^{-q/2}(\ln t)^{q/2}$, for $q>2$. The third type is applicable in the nonlinear se...

This paper deals with (finite or infinite) sequences of arbitrary independent events in some probability space. We find sharp lower bounds for the probability of a union of such events when the sum of their probabilities is given. The results have parallel meanings in terms of infinite series.

Let S_k be the k-th partial sum of Banach space valued independent identically distributed random variables. In this paper, we compare the tail distribution of ||S_k|| with that of ||S_j||, and deduce some tail distribution maximal inequalities. Theorem: There is universal constant c such that for j < k Pr(||S_j|| > t) <= c Pr(||S_k|| > t/c).

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.

We consider the problem of bounding large deviations for non-i.i.d. random variables that are allowed to have arbitrary dependencies. Previous works typically assumed a specific dependence structure, namely the existence of independent components. Bounds that depend on the degree of dependence between the observations have only been studied in the theory of mixing processes, where variables are time-ordered. Here, we introduce a new way of measuring dependences within an unor...

In this paper a result of Latala about the tail behavior of Gaussian polynomials will be discussed. Latala proved an interesting result about this problem in paper [2]. But his proof applied an incorrect statement at a crucial point. Hence the question may arise whether the main result of paper [2] is valid. The goal of this paper is to settle this problem by presenting such a proof where the application of the erroneous statement is avoided. I discuss the proofs in detail ev...

We study the exact constants in the moment inequalities for sums of centered independent random variables: improve their asymptotics, low and upper bounds, calculate more exact asymptotics, elaborate the numerical algorithm for their calculation, study the class of smoothing etc.

Let X_1,X_2,... be a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables, and put S_n=X_1+...+X_n. Under some conditions on the positive sequence tau_n and the positive increasing sequence a_n, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the convergence of sum_{n=1}^infty tau_n P(|S_n|>t a_n) for all t>0, generalizing Baum and Katz's (1965) generalization of the Hsu-Robbins-Erdos (1947, 1949) law of large numbers, also allowing us to characterize the conv...