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January 24, 2016

Sample median for a Lorentz (Cauchy) distribution - part 2

In a previous post I derived the distribution function for the median of a sample of size n=2k+1 (with k0 integer) drawn from a Lorentz (or Cauchy) distribution:
g(x)=n!(k!)2πnγ[π24arctan2(xx0γ)]k11+(xx0γ)2
I will now consider some of its properties.

The Figure below shows g(x) with x0=0 and γ=1 for a few values of n:

As the sample size increases, the distribution is more and more localized, as its tails decay faster. The Lorentzian already behaves as x2 at infinity, and the bracket in front of it adds a factor xk. For k1 the distribution has a first moment: x=x0, so the median is an unbiased estimator of the position parameter x0. For k2 it also has a variance V=(xx0)2, which quantifies the tightness of the estimation [1]. Following Rider, I'll use the substitution ϕ=arccot(xx0γ), yielding:

V=n!(k!)2πnγπ0dϕγ(1+cot2ϕ)[π2arctan(xx0γ)]k[π2+arctan(xx0γ)]kγ2cot2ϕ1+cot2ϕ=γ22n!(k!)2πnπ/20dϕϕk(πϕ)kcot2ϕ=γ2Ik

where Ik83n can be obtained by numerical integration and the standard deviation of the median V decreases as 1/n, as per the central limit theorem.
TO DO: I found the behaviour of Ik by inspecting the list of numerical values; try to get a more rigorous result. Compare with the large-n limit π24n.


[1] P. R. Rider, Variance of the Median of Samples from a Cauchy Distribution. Journal of the American Statistical Association 55, 322–323 (1960).

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