English

Regularizing random points by deleting a few

Probability 2025-01-24 v1

Abstract

It is well understood that if one is given a set X[0,1]X \subset [0,1] of nn independent uniformly distributed random variables, then sup0x1#X[0,x]#Xxlognn\mboxwithveryhighprobability. \sup_{0 \leq x \leq 1} \left| \frac{\# X \cap [0,x]}{\# X} - x \right| \lesssim \frac{\sqrt{\log{n}}}{ \sqrt{n}} \qquad \mbox{with very high probability.} We show that one can improve the error term by removing a few of the points. For any m0.001nm \leq 0.001n there exists a subset YXY \subset X obtained by deleting at most mm points, so that the error term drops from logn/n\sim \sqrt{\log{n}}/\sqrt{n} to log(n)/m \log{(n)}/m with high probability. When m=cnm=cn for a small 0c0.0010 \leq c \leq 0.001, this achieves the essentially optimal asymptotic order of discrepancy log(n)/n\log(n)/n. The proof is constructive and works in an online setting (where one is given the points sequentially, one at a time, and has to decide whether to keep or discard it). A change of variables shows the same result for any random variables on the real line with absolutely continuous density.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.13813,
  title  = {Regularizing random points by deleting a few},
  author = {Dmitriy Bilyk and Stefan Steinerberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.13813},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:15:04.669Z