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The logarithmic law of sample correlation matrices

Probability 2026-03-23 v1

Abstract

Let R\mathbf{R} be the sample correlation matrix constructed from XRp×n\mathbf{X}\in \mathbb{R}^{p\times n}, whose entries are independent and identically distributed random variables with mean zero and tail probability condition limxx3P(ξ>x)=0\lim_{x\rightarrow \infty}x^3\mathbb{P}(|\xi|>x)=0. We derive the universal logarithmic law for logdetR\log \det \mathbf{R}, \begin{equation*} \frac{\log \det \mathbf{R}-(p-n+1/2)\log (1-\frac{p-1}{n})+p-\frac{p}{n}}{\sqrt{-2\log (1-\frac{p-1}{n})-2\frac{p}{n}}}\stackrel{d}{\rightarrow} {N}(0,1), \end{equation*} if pnp\le n as p,np,n\rightarrow \infty. Moreover, under the near-singularity case 0npn1w0\le n-p\le n^{1-w} for any w(0,1)w\in (0,1), it is shown that the tail probability condition can be weakened to limxx3(logx)1/4+cP(ξ>x)<\lim_{x\rightarrow \infty}x^3(\log x)^{-1/4+\mathfrak{c}}\mathbb{P}(|\xi|>x)<\infty for any constant 0<c<1/40<\mathfrak{c}<1/4.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.19800,
  title  = {The logarithmic law of sample correlation matrices},
  author = {Yanpeng Li and Zhi Liu and Jiahui Xie and Wang Zhou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.19800},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

56 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:29:34.111Z