TU3.R4.1

Detection of Correlated Random Vectors

Dor Elimelech, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Wasim Huleihel, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Session:
Hypothesis Testing 2

Track:
11: Information Theory and Statistics

Location:
Omikron II

Presentation Time:
Tue, 9 Jul, 14:25 - 14:45

Session Chair:
Yuval Kochman, Hebrew University
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the problem of deciding whether two standard normal random vectors $\mathsf{X}\in\mathbb{R}^{n}$ and $\mathsf{Y}\in\mathbb{R}^{n}$ are correlated or not. This is formulated as a hypothesis testing problem, where under the null hypothesis, these vectors are statistically independent, while under the alternative, $\mathsf{X}$ and a randomly and uniformly permuted version of $\mathsf{Y}$, are correlated with correlation $\rho$. We analyze the thresholds at which optimal testing is information-theoretically impossible and possible, as a function of $n$ and $\rho$. To derive our information-theoretic lower bounds, we develop a novel technique for evaluating the second moment of the likelihood ratio using an orthogonal polynomials expansion, which among other things, reveals a surprising connection to integer partition functions. We also study a multi-dimensional generalization of the above setting, where rather than two vectors we observe two databases/matrices, and furthermore allow for partial correlations between these two.
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