On the Distribution of Complex Roots of Random Polynomials with Heavy-tailed Coefficients

Consider a random polynomial $G_n(z)=\xi_nz^n+...+\xi_1z+\xi_0$ with i.i.d. complex-valued coefficients. Suppose that the distribution of $\log(1+\log(1+|\xi_0|))$ has a slowly varying tail. Then the distribution of the complex roots of $G_n$ concentrates in probability, as $n\to\infty$, to two centered circles and is uniform in the argument as $n\to\infty$. The radii of the circles are $|\xi_0/\xi_\tau|^{1/\tau}$ and $|\xi_\tau/\xi_n|^{1/(n-\tau)}$, where $\xi_\tau$ denotes the coefficient with the maximum modulus.Comment: 8 page

Roots of random polynomials whose coefficients have logarithmic tails

It has been shown by Ibragimov and Zaporozhets [In Prokhorov and Contemporary Probability Theory (2013) Springer] that the complex roots of a random polynomial $G_n(z)=\sum_{k=0}^n\xi_kz^k$ with i.i.d. coefficients $\xi_0,\ldots,\xi_n$ concentrate a.s. near the unit circle as $n\to\infty$ if and only if ${\mathbb{E}\log_+}|\xi_0|<\infty$. We study the transition from concentration to deconcentration of roots by considering coefficients with tails behaving like $L({\log}|t|)({\log}|t|)^{-\alpha}$ as $t\to\infty$, where $\alpha\geq0$, and $L$ is a slowly varying function. Under this assumption, the structure of complex and real roots of $G_n$ is described in terms of the least concave majorant of the Poisson point process on $[0,1]\times (0,\infty)$ with intensity $\alpha v^{-(\alpha+1)}\,du\,dv$.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOP764 the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Universality for zeros of random analytic functions

Let $\xi_0,\xi_1,...$ be independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables such that \E \log (1+|\xi_0|)<\infty. We consider random analytic functions of the form $$G_n(z)=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \xi_k f_{k,n} z^k,$$ where $f_{k,n}$ are deterministic complex coefficients. Let $\nu_n$ be the random measure assigning the same weight $1/n$ to each complex zero of $G_n$. Assuming essentially that $-\frac 1n \log f_{[tn], n}\to u(t)$ as $n\to\infty$, where $u(t)$ is some function, we show that the measure $\nu_n$ converges weakly to some deterministic measure which is characterized in terms of the Legendre--Fenchel transform of $u$. The limiting measure is universal, that is it does not depend on the distribution of the $\xi_k$'s. This result is applied to several ensembles of random analytic functions including the ensembles corresponding to the three two-dimensional geometries of constant curvature. As another application, we prove a random polynomial analogue of the circular law for random matrices.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Random determinants, mixed volumes of ellipsoids, and zeros of Gaussian random fields

Consider a $d\times d$ matrix $M$ whose rows are independent centered non-degenerate Gaussian vectors $\xi_1,...,\xi_d$ with covariance matrices $\Sigma_1,...,\Sigma_d$. Denote by $\mathcal{E}_i$ the location-dispersion ellipsoid of $\xi_i:\mathcal{E}_i={\mathbf{x}\in\mathbb{R}^d : \mathbf{x}^\top\Sigma_i^{-1} \mathbf{x}\leqslant1}$. We show that $$\mathbb{E}\,|\det M|=\frac{d!}{(2\pi)^{d/2}}V_d(\mathcal{E}_1,...,\mathcal{E}_d),$$ where $V_d(\cdot,...,\cdot)$ denotes the {\it mixed volume}. We also generalize this result to the case of rectangular matrices. As a direct corollary we get an analytic expression for the mixed volume of $d$ arbitrary ellipsoids in $\mathbb{R}^d$. As another application, we consider a smooth centered non-degenerate Gaussian random field $X=(X_1,...,X_k)^\top:\mathbb{R}^d\to\mathbb{R}^k$. Using Kac-Rice formula, we obtain the geometric interpretation of the intensity of zeros of $X$ in terms of the mixed volume of location-dispersion ellipsoids of the gradients of $X_i/\sqrt{\mathbf{Var} X_i}$. This relates zero sets of equations to mixed volumes in a way which is reminiscent of the well-known Bernstein theorem about the number of solutions of the typical system of algebraic equations