Tests for High-Dimensional Covariance Matrices Using Random Matrix Projection

The classic likelihood ratio test for testing the equality of two covariance matrices breakdowns due to the singularity of the sample covariance matrices when the data dimension $p$ is larger than the sample size $n$. In this paper, we present a conceptually simple method using random projection to project the data onto the one-dimensional random subspace so that the conventional methods can be applied. Both one-sample and two-sample tests for high-dimensional covariance matrices are studied. Asymptotic results are established and numerical results are given to compare our method with state-of-the-art methods in the literature.