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93 votes
1 answer
11k views

The mathematical theory of Feynman integrals

It is well known that Feynman integrals are one of the tools that physicists have and mathematicians haven't, sadly. Arguably, they are the most important such tool. Briefly, the question I'd like to ...
algori's user avatar
  • 23.4k
65 votes
9 answers
11k views

Polish spaces in probability

Probabilists often work with Polish spaces, though it is not always very clear where this assumption is needed. Question: What can go wrong when doing probability on non-Polish spaces?
Thanh's user avatar
  • 651
40 votes
5 answers
5k views

"Entropy" proof of Brunn-Minkowski Inequality?

I read in an information theory textbook the Brunn-Minkowski inequality follows from the Entropy Power inequality. The first one says that if $A,B$ are convex polygons in $\mathbb{R}^d$, then $$ m(...
john mangual's user avatar
  • 22.7k
30 votes
1 answer
1k views

Functional-analytic proof of the existence of non-symmetric random variables with vanishing odd moments

It is known that a random variable $X$ which is symmetric about $0$ (i.e $X$ and $-X$ have the same distribution) must have all its odd moments (when they exist!) equal to zero. The converse is a ...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,824
26 votes
5 answers
3k views

Nice applications for Schwartz distributions

I am to teach a second year grad course in analysis with focus on Schwartz distributions. Among the core topics I intend to cover are: Some multilinear algebra including the Kernel Theorem and ...
Abdelmalek Abdesselam's user avatar
25 votes
2 answers
3k views

Understanding of rough path

A rough path is defined as an ordered pair $ (X, \mathbb X)$, where $X$ is a path mapping from $[0,T]$ to some Banach space $V$ and $\mathbb X:[0,T]^2 \mapsto V^2$ is another mapping for additional ...
kenneth's user avatar
  • 1,369
25 votes
3 answers
10k views

L1 distance between gaussian measures

L1 distance between gaussian measures: Definition Let $P_1$ and $P_0$ be two gaussian measures on $\mathbb{R}^p$ with respective "mean,Variance" $m_1,C_1$ and $m_0,C_0$ (I assume matrices have full ...
robin girard's user avatar
23 votes
2 answers
7k views

What is a Gaussian measure?

Let $X$ be a topological affine space. A Gaussian measure on $X$ is characterized by the property that its finite-dimensional projections are multivariate Gaussian distributions. Is there a direct ...
Tom LaGatta's user avatar
  • 8,422
23 votes
1 answer
1k views

How do mathematicians and physicists think of SL(2,R) acting on Gaussian functions?

Let $\mathcal{N}(\mu,\sigma^2)$ denote the Gaussian distribution on $\mathbb{R}$: $$ \mathcal{N}(\mu,\sigma^2)(x) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi\sigma^2}} e^{-\frac{(x-\mu)^2}{2\sigma^2}}.$$ A Gaussian ...
Jon Middleton's user avatar
21 votes
2 answers
2k views

A measure on the space of probability measures

This question was originaly posted in the stackexchange https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1226701/a-measure-on-the-space-of-probability-measures but since it only got a comment I decided to ...
Bruce Wayne's user avatar
21 votes
2 answers
2k views

A strange variant of the Gaussian log-Sobolev inequality

Let $\phi : \mathbb{R}^d \to \mathbb{R}$ be a convex function, and assume that it grows at most linearly at infinity for simplicity. Denote by $\gamma$ the standard Gaussian measure on $\mathbb{R}^d$, ...
Elwood's user avatar
  • 562
20 votes
2 answers
2k views

Uncertainty principle and Cramer-Rao bound - is there relation?

Just out of curiosity. The two things sounds a little bit similar - 1) Uncertainty principle 2) Cramer-Rao bound. Saying that we cannot measure something with certain accuracy. However looking closer ...
Alexander Chervov's user avatar
20 votes
2 answers
890 views

A functional inequality about log-concave functions

Let $f,g$ be smooth even log-concave functions on $\mathbb{R}^{n}$, i.e.,$f=e^{-F(x)}, g=e^{-G(x)}$ for some even convex functions $F(x),G(x)$. Is it true that: $$ \int_{\mathbb{R}^{n}} \langle \...
Paata Ivanishvili's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
3k views

Let a function f have all moments zero. What conditions force f to be identically zero?

Throughout, let $f$ be a Lebesgue measurable function (or continuous if you wish, but this is probably no easier). (Questions with distributions etc. are possible also but I want to keep things simple ...
Zen Harper's user avatar
  • 1,950
18 votes
4 answers
1k views

Reference for a strong intermediate value theorem for measures

Let $\mu$ be a finite nonatomic measure on a measurable space $(X,\Sigma)$, and for simplicity assume that $\mu(X) = 1$. There is a well-known "intermediate value theorem" of Sierpiński that states ...
Manny Reyes's user avatar
  • 5,162

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