Skip to content
Prev 40150 / 63421 Next

matrix not positive definite (while it should be)

On Thu, May 05, 2011 at 02:31:59PM -0400, Arthur Charpentier wrote:
Hi.

If X is a random vector from the 2 dimensional normal distribution
with the covariance matrix

        [,1]  [,2]
  [1,]  0.40 -0.25
  [2,] -0.25  0.30

then the vector X[REGION], which consists of replicated components
of X, has the expanded covariance matrix n times n, which you ask
for. Since the mean and the covariance matrix determine the distribution
uniquely, this is also a description of the required distribution.

The distribution is concentrated in a 2 dimensional subspace, since
the covariance matrix has rank 2.

Hope this helps.

Petr Savicky.