Non-gaussian likelihood function

• Verfasst von: Amendola, Luca [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Non-gaussian likelihood function
• Verf.angabe: Luca Amendola, Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Viale del Parco Mellini, 84, Rome 00136 - Italy
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 21.11.2017
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: De.arxiv.org
• Jahr Quelle: 1998
• Band/Heft Quelle: (1996) Artikel-Nummer 9810198, 10 Seiten
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• K10plus-PPN: 1565543440

Abstract

I present here a generalization of the maximum likelihood method and the $\chi^2$ method to the cases in which the data are {\it not} assumed to be Gaussian distributed. The method, based on the multivariate Edgeworth expansion, can find several astrophysical applications. I mention only two of them. First, in the microwave background analysis, where it cannot be excluded that the initial perturbations are non-Gaussian. Second, in the large scale structure statistics, as we already know that the galaxy distribution deviates from Gaussianity on the scales at which non-linearity is important. As a first interesting result I show here how the confidence regions are modified when non-Gaussianity is taken into account.