Bootstrapping spectral statistics in high dimensions

Statistics derived from the eigenvalues of sample covariance matrices are called spectral statistics, and they play a central role in multivariate testing. Although bootstrap methods are an established approach to approximating the laws of spectral statistics in low-dimensional problems, these methods are relatively unexplored in the high-dimensional setting. The aim of this paper is to focus on linear spectral statistics as a class of prototypes for developing a new bootstrap in high-dimensions --- and we refer to this method as the Spectral Bootstrap. In essence, the method originates from the parametric bootstrap, and is motivated by the notion that, in high dimensions, it is difficult to obtain a non-parametric approximation to the full data-generating distribution. From a practical standpoint, the method is easy to use, and allows the user to circumvent the difficulties of complex asymptotic formulas for linear spectral statistics. In addition to proving the consistency of the proposed method, we provide encouraging empirical results in a variety of settings. Lastly, and perhaps most interestingly, we show through simulations that the method can be applied successfully to statistics outside the class of linear spectral statistics, such as the largest sample eigenvalue and others.Comment: 42 page

Improved Rates of Bootstrap Approximation for the Operator Norm: A Coordinate-Free Approach

Let $\hat\Sigma=\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^n X_i\otimes X_i$ denote the sample covariance operator of centered i.i.d. observations $X_1,\dots,X_n$ in a real separable Hilbert space, and let $\Sigma=\mathbf{E}(X_1\otimes X_1)$. The focus of this paper is to understand how well the bootstrap can approximate the distribution of the operator norm error $\sqrt n\|\hat\Sigma-\Sigma\|_{\text{op}}$, in settings where the eigenvalues of $\Sigma$ decay as $\lambda_j(\Sigma)\asymp j^{-2\beta}$ for some fixed parameter $\beta>1/2$. Our main result shows that the bootstrap can approximate the distribution of $\sqrt n\|\hat\Sigma-\Sigma\|_{\text{op}}$ at a rate of order $n^{-\frac{\beta-1/2}{2\beta+4+\epsilon}}$ with respect to the Kolmogorov metric, for any fixed $\epsilon>0$. In particular, this shows that the bootstrap can achieve near $n^{-1/2}$ rates in the regime of large $\beta$--which substantially improves on previous near $n^{-1/6}$ rates in the same regime. In addition to obtaining faster rates, our analysis leverages a fundamentally different perspective based on coordinate-free techniques. Moreover, our result holds in greater generality, and we propose a new model that is compatible with both elliptical and Mar\v{c}enko-Pastur models in high-dimensional Euclidean spaces, which may be of independent interest