Updates to the Cauchy Central Limit

Updates to the Cauchy Central Limit

There were two updates on the Cauchy central limit theorem telling that if the Cauchy mean and risk \lim_{m \to \infty} \frac{1}{m} \int_{-m}^m x^2 f(x) \; dx of a random variable X with PDF f is finite and non-zero, then any IID random process X_n with that distribution has normalized sums S_n which converge in distribution to the Cauchy distribution. There are results of Paul Lévy describing in terms of the characteristic function to have convergence. This is based on a rather simple fixed point result telling that the log g(t) of the characteristic function \phi(t) satisfies the fixed point equation g(t/2)=g(t)/2 so that if $latx g$ has one sided derivatives at 0 different from 0 and infinity and is even, then g(t) = -c |t| must be the fixed point. Indeed, the renormalization map T(g) = 2 g(t/2) on even functions converges. By a general Zeckendorff argument the convergence of S_{2^n} is equivalent to the convergence of S_n. As for working with distribution, one can find in the book of Kolmogorov-Gnedenko a theorem of Gnedenko which describes in terms of the CDF , whether we are in the attractor of the Cauchy distribution. What I want to do is to have the risk condition alone decide whether we are in the attractor. We only need to show that non-zero, finite risk implies that \phi (or g) have one sided limits at zero. This is not so obvious. While the function \phi is uniformly continuous, the one-sided limits do not necessary have to exist There is a beautiful theorem of Polya which assures that \phi comes from a probability distribution. Sufficient is that $\latex phi$ is convex and symmetric and \phi(0)=1 and -1 \leq \phi \leq 1. Under this Polya condition the one sided derivatives exist at every point! But most distributions do not satisfy the Polya condition. One can construct densities f for which at some points t, the derivative function \phi'(t) has a devil comb oscillatory singularity and I believe one can have this even on a dense set of points but I do not think this can happen at 0. But for Cauchy, one only needs to show that under the finite risk condition to be the case. By subtracting and adding a suitable Cauchy distribution function one now only has to show that if the risk functional for a function f is zero, then its Fourier transform \phi has a derivative at t=0. Classically, if the mean is zero and variance is finite then \phi is even twice differentiable and t=0 is a maximum. A Fourier computation similarly as done in the video should allow to conclude that in the zero risk case, we still must have both \phi'(0+) = \phi'(0-) = 0. I had been thinking about this problem and the videos helped a bit. But it is not finished.