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Issue with Expectation function of normally distributed random variables

Posted 1 year ago

POSTED BY: Toby Im
5 Replies
Posted 1 year ago

Found the desired function! CompoundPoissonDistribution

POSTED BY: Toby Im
Posted 1 year ago

If you consider a truncated Poisson (i.e., getting rid of 0), then Mathematica can do all of the heavy lifting.

First we find the distribution of a truncated Poisson:

d1 = TruncatedDistribution[{1, \[Infinity]}, PoissonDistribution[\[Lambda]]]

For the sum of $n$ independent normal random variable with mean $\mu$ and variance $\sigma^2$, the resulting mean and variance of that sum are $n \mu$ and $n \sigma^2$. We use the ParameterMixtureDistribution function to find the distribution of the sum of a random number of normal random variables:

d2 = ParameterMixtureDistribution[NormalDistribution[n \[Mu], Sqrt[n] \[Sigma]], n \[Distributed] d1]

The mean and variance are found with the following:

mean = Mean[d2] // FunctionExpand // FullSimplify

$$\frac{\left(e^{\lambda }-1\right) \lambda \mu }{-\lambda +e^{\lambda }-1}$$

variance = Variance[d2] // FunctionExpand // FullSimplify

$$\frac{\lambda \left(\left(e^{\lambda }-1\right) \left(-\lambda +e^{\lambda }-1\right) \sigma ^2-e^{\lambda } \mu ^2 \left(\lambda ^2-2 \cosh (\lambda )+2\right)\right)}{\left(\lambda -e^{\lambda }+1\right)^2}$$

If $\lambda$ is large (such the the probability of zero is very low), then one obtains the following for $\lambda=15$:

mean /. \[Lambda] -> 15 // N
(* 15.0001 \[Mu] *)

variance /. \[Lambda] -> 15 // N // Expand
(* 14.9991 \[Mu]^2 + 15.0001 \[Sigma]^2 *)
POSTED BY: Jim Baldwin
Posted 1 year ago

You shouldn't be using N are a variable name as it is a reserved function. It's best practice to start the names of variables with lowercase letters.

Also what do you propose for when n = 0 which happens with a positive probability for a Poisson random variable?

POSTED BY: Jim Baldwin
Posted 1 year ago

Right, thanks.

If the Poisson is 0, the sum is equal to 0.

POSTED BY: Toby Im
Posted 1 year ago

I have solved this issue. I was expecting some functionality on subscripted random variables that is not available.

POSTED BY: Toby Im
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