Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics Seminar

University of Michigan

Fall 2003
Friday, September 5, 3:10-4:00pm, 4096 East Hall

Largest Eigenvalue of Sample Covariance Matrix

Jinho Baik

University of Michigan


Abstract

Sample covariance matrix is one of main objects in the multivariate analysis in statistics. Contrary to the traditional study, of current interest is the case when the number of variables of a sample (ex. weather observation positions) is comparable to the sample size (ex. daily observation). The interest in this talk is the behavior of the largest eigenvalue of sample covariance matrix when both the sample size and the number of variables become large. We will restrict to the case when the sample matrix is complex and Gaussian. The main interest is the effect of the non-homogeneity of the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix to the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix in the limit. The method is an adaptation of random matrix theory and part of the presentation is a joint work (in progress) with Gerard Ben Arous and Sandrine Pich\'e.