Tracy–Widom distribution
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The Tracy–Widom distribution is a probability distribution from random matrix theory introduced by Craig Tracy and Harold Widom (1993, 1994). It is the distribution of the normalized largest eigenvalue of a random Hermitian matrix. The distribution is defined as a Fredholm determinant.
In practical terms, Tracy–Widom is the crossover function between the two phases of weakly versus strongly coupled components in a system.[1] It also appears in the distribution of the length of the longest increasing subsequence of random permutations,[2] as large-scale statistics in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation,[3] in current fluctuations of the asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) with step initial condition,[4] and in simplified mathematical models of the behavior of the longest common subsequence problem on random inputs.[5] See Takeuchi & Sano (2010) and Takeuchi et al. (2011) for experimental testing (and verifying) that the interface fluctuations of a growing droplet (or substrate) are described by the TW distribution (or ) as predicted by Prähofer & Spohn (2000).
The distribution is of particular interest in multivariate statistics.[6] For a discussion of the universality of , , see Deift (2007). For an application of to inferring population structure from genetic data see Patterson, Price & Reich (2006). In 2017 it was proved that the distribution F is not infinitely divisible.[7]